by Anuradha Roy
I was too riveted by the flames and cries of people to notice that Suleiman Chacha had joined me. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a packet of translucent cigarette papers. I jumped at the sound of foil. He began the fussy business of layering his paper with tobacco. He did not look up at the flames until his own roll of tobacco was glowing in the darkness.
“I think we’ll have to go away for a while,” he said, as if discussing a summer holiday.
“Go away? What do you mean? Where to?”
“My relatives in Rajshahi,” he replied. “They have been asking me to visit for years anyway. This is a good time.”
“There’s no need for you to go anywhere,” I exclaimed. “None of this will affect you. It’s the slums they’re burning.”
“Oh come, nothing to do with anything burning, I just think your Chachi needs a change. She’s getting a bit depressed.”
“If she needs a change, go to Darjeeling. Why don’t you?”
“Those relatives need visiting,” Suleiman Chacha said, half laughing. “What if they forget us? And you do know I have a room or two in an ancestral house there. Shouldn’t I lay claim?”
I knew as well as he did that he could not discuss the real reason for going away. I had sensed from the time I began living with Chacha that the political upheavals and violence all around, the news of rioting in Punjab and in the Muslim pockets of the north worried him deeply, as they did everyone else. We used to discuss it now and then, but as troubles that simmered at a distance from us, that might scorch us at the edges but not burn; we had never thought the flames would come close enough to threaten us.
Now they had.
When I walked into a room where Chacha was sitting with his friends, or even just with Chachi, there was an instant lull in the conversation and then they would begin to talk of something innocuous. And where Chacha had earlier routinely gone out and met his Hindu friends, now he seemed to meet only his Muslim friends, and at home. When they did not think I was in the vicinity they argued with each other about leaving the country. One afternoon I left the house when I heard quiet sounds of sobbing at the doorway as I was about to enter. More and more, I had begun to feel like an outsider in the place that had become my home.
“You don’t need to leave,” I repeated, but I was drained of conviction. These days people I had thought of as ordinary and levelheaded talked of storing bottles of acid as weapons. If the mob came for Suleiman Chacha and Chachi, where would I hide them? How would I save them?
Suleiman Chacha took another deep drag, but his cigarette, as these rolled ones do, had gone out. He fumbled in his pocket for matches and lit the damp-looking blackened roll again.
“You can carry on living in the house,” he said again. “In fact it would be a good thing not to put a lock on it – who knows what may happen. Look after it until we are back.”
“How long will you go for?” I asked.
“I hope it won’t be for long,” he said. “Let these troubles subside and I’ll be back before you know it.”
“What about the school?” I said.
“I’ll tell them nothing,” he said. “I’ll just say that I’m going on leave for two months.”
“Surely they will guess?”
“The headmaster’s a good man. He has not asked me to leave. Somehow,” he chuckled, “I think he will be relieved if I go.”
* * *
I knew about the ancestral house in Rajshahi: Chacha was reticent about his past, but Chachi was not. That house was a source of acrimony between them, more so when money ran short. Chacha was the second of four sons of a government official in Rajshahi, and his father had left behind land and a large family home. It was meant to have been divided equally between the brothers, but Suleiman Chacha, who did not live in Rajshahi – nor altogether in the material world – had been cheated out of his share. It existed, theoretically, but he could not lay claim to it any longer. As the end of each month drew near and Chachi’s housekeeping money dwindled, she felt a keener sense of deprivation than she ever did at the beginning of the month. At such times she would say to me, “If we got an eighth share even, and could sell that rice land, we would have enough not to worry. Then I would cook you phirni and biryani every day, and we could have ceiling fans in every room and not sweat through the summer. But will your Chacha do anything about it? People like him should never marry, just sit under a tree and be the Buddha.”
Chacha ticked her off briskly, saying, “Pipe dreams, more pipe dreams. When will you stop?” But it was this faint wisp of a possible windfall from their land that kept them both going as they dug into the backs of cupboards for small change in the last week of every month.
And now all of a sudden Chacha and Chachi were being forced to set off for Rajshahi, to claim their share of the home and land they had lost long before.
* * *
The most perplexing question about Chacha and Chachi leaving turned out to be not the job or the house or relatives and friends, but their parrot, which they would have to leave in my care. I do not like birds at close quarters. They belong in an element different from ours and that is where they should remain. I felt as much affection for the lizard that crept behind my table lamp as for the bird in the cage. Both, I hoped, would keep their distance from me.
Suleiman Chacha’s parrot was called Noorie. She looked as all parrots do, bright green, with a scarlet-purple band around a neck which seemed to be able to swivel a full circle as she watched people from her cage. Every night, Suleiman Chacha would cover the cage with a cloth, all the while muttering to the bird in a coaxing tone he used only with her. During the day, Chacha and Chachi would take turns to tempt the bird with curly green chillies and grain. The cage was large, with a swing in it. It was kept in the wide upstairs verandah overlooking the trees, so that Noorie, I thought, could envy her free compatriots at leisure.
I am being unjust, for the bird flew free in the house much of the day. As soon as Suleiman Chacha had finished his morning prayers he went to the cage and lifted the cloth with a flourish, making chucking noises at the bird, which responded with a series of clicks of its beak and a soft word or two. Chacha had taught her to say his name and half a dozen other words, a repertoire he was inordinately doting about. As parents do with young children, he would coax the bird into speech for his visitors.
Murmuring to each other, they would be thus united every morning, after which Noorie would perch on a door or, when it was available, Chacha’s shoulder as he went about his chores. Sometimes it alighted on me too, its claws poking through my thin kurta, its feathers tickling my ears. I am sure it knew I did not want it there.
“Won’t you take Noorie with you?” I asked Chachi, anxious not to be left looking after the bird.
I had followed her into the kitchen where she now sat on the floor, leaning against the door, picking rice over for stones. She peered into the rice, pushing bits of it away with her forefinger so that there were two heaps on the big plate, separated by a golden river of bell metal. She did not look up. Her voice had a tremor, as it often did these days.
“We’ve no idea where we’ll stay, how can we carry a bird with us?”
“But you do have a house, you will live there, and it’s only for a month or two.”
“I have never seen this house. It has so many of his relatives already living in it. I would be happy if they gave us a corner to sleep in.”
I felt sure she was exaggerating, being upset at leaving Calcutta so unexpectedly. I looked up with trepidation at Noorie who was perched upon the kitchen door clucking and muttering to herself, unaware of her destiny.
* * *
They left two days later. Chachi had made some parathas for the journey and packed some other dry stuff: biscuits and muri. They were taking no more than a trunkful of clothes and a bedroll. The night before they were to leave, Chacha took me around the house, showing me the electric meter, telling me about the bills that had to be paid each month. He eve
n showed me where he kept the papers for property tax, and gave me a post-dated cheque for a payment due four months later.
“But you’ll be back by then,” I insisted.
“Of course, we will,” Chacha said, his voice tender, as if I were a child he needed to console. “This is just in case we get delayed … ”
Chachi had bought a week’s supply of crisp, green chillies and half a kilo of the grain the bird liked to eat.
“You know the sound Noorie makes when she wants a chilli, don’t you?” she said. “And remember, her bowl must have water at all times.”
“I know it is a bit troublesome,” Chacha said, “but you will need to clean out the cage every so often.”
“It’s no trouble,” I mumbled, feeling the weight of a stone in my heart.
“Talk to her every morning,” he said, “before you leave for work. She’ll be lonely with nobody in the house. She’s not used to it.”
“You will be back in no time,” I said again.
“Of course,” Chacha said. “Why would I want to stay away from my own home?”
Noorie seemed to have understood that something was afoot and had been flapping about inside the cage, making harsh noises. Before they left, I covered the cage with her cloth.
They did not want me to go to the station with them. “I don’t want Noorie to be alone when we leave,” Chacha said. “We can manage this little bit of luggage on our own.”
I watched them trudge down to the end of the lane, bent sideways by their bundles and trunk. The corners of my eyes were damp with tears and I brushed them away, feeling both impatient and nonplussed by my despondency. They vanished from sight without turning. I shut the gate and went back to remove the cloth from Noorie’s cage.
“Now it’s just you and me,” I whispered, wanting to be consoled. She stayed in the corner of her cage and would not come out.
* * *
My maudlin temper had left me by the next morning. It is strangely comforting how much distance sleep can create between events. I looked around my empire. Silence had replaced the usual morning sounds: Chacha’s gargling and loud throat-clearing as he brushed his teeth, Chachi’s series of sneezes early each day. For the first time in my life there was no-one for whom I felt obliged to vacate a chair. I could put my feet up on the table. I could be whoever I wanted to be, I was in a house all to myself in a city where virtually nobody knew me. I was filled with a sudden sense of elation and space. I flung the cover off the parrot and opened the door of her cage.
“I’m free!” I announced to Noorie. “And you are too!”
Noorie would not leave the cage.
I did not care. I threw in some chillies and her grain. When I reached inside her cage for her water bowl she flapped her wings and pecked me, drawing blood.
“You’d better not do that,” I snarled. “It’s just you and me now!”
I am ashamed to say that I hardly thought about Chacha and Chachi rumbling their way across to Rajshahi, backs aching against the hard seats of a crowded train, weary and worried, not knowing what awaited them at their destination.
* * *
I lived in Suleiman Chacha’s house for a long period without any real change in routine. I took no liberties. I did not, for example, shift from my small room to one of the larger ones. I fed the parrot every day, as I had seen Suleiman Chacha do, but she often left her grain untouched and would refuse to come out of her cage. I had not imagined birds mourned, but this one certainly seemed to. Once or twice she pecked me hard on my wrist when I was putting in or taking out her food and water. “Bastard,” I would spit at her then. “Just come out and I’ll wring your stupid green neck!” I would lock her in her cage and leave for work at the tannery, returning late in the evening, stripping my sweaty shirt as I leapt up the stairs two at a time. I would find her crouched in the corner as I had left her, as if she hadn’t moved at all in the nine hours I had been away. If I reached out to check her water bowl, she’d peck at me again and I would yell, “Haraami! If they weren’t coming back, I’d make parrot stew out of you!”
But Chacha and Chachi had not returned a year later. They did not return to see the country cut in two in 1947 or to watch the British leave, they did not return for the speeches and the new flags. They were away during the worst of the killings and of course, since they were Muslim, I did not expect them among the refugees who staggered into Calcutta. They must have found something for themselves in East Pakistan – that was the explanation I gave myself – they must have put down roots, and perhaps they would write and send for Noorie one day. I did not want to let in the thought that they might never have reached Rajshahi at all, that they might have been slaughtered on the way.
For months after Chacha and Chachi left, I locked the doors and windows every evening, fearing the house would be invaded as a Muslim’s. Just as I began to think I was safe, a mob came one night with torches and yelled for Suleiman Khan to come out, or else. I heard their shouts and slipped out of the back, hiding behind a low water tank. But for the certainty that I would be dead within minutes, there was no place for thoughts in my mind. I heard footsteps approaching the tank, a voice calling out, “I think the mullah’s hiding here.” I saw feet crush the grass next to me. When the man shone his torch into my face, he exclaimed, “You? You here?” Luckily for me he was from my neighbourhood and I had often chatted with him at the local shop when I was buying eggs and cigarettes.
I crept out from behind the tank. I had lost my voice. In some sort of whisper I managed to say that Suleiman Khan had fled and left me the house. “Left you the house?” he exclaimed. “You lucky runt!” I managed to smile, and the house got a reprieve.
But I did not. The tannery at which I worked as a clerk was owned by a Muslim. He decided to close it down and leave.
I had few friends. Most of the boys at my Intermediate college had scattered and I had not kept in touch. The only man who seemed to have any sympathy for me was the head clerk at the tannery, who took me to a roadside stall for lunch the day we were to part. We sat facing each other, legs across a wooden bench, aluminium plates of steaming rice and fish curry before us. Barababu washed his hands in water from his glass and shut his eyes, muttering a prayer. Then he plunged his fingers into his rice.
“Look,” Barababu said. “Think about me. I have a wife, three daughters. It’s not half as bad for you. You just need to look out for yourself. I envy you, my friend.”
“Envy? I’m an unlucky bastard,” I said. “The moment things seem to settle down, I’m back on the street.”
“The street?” Barababu exclaimed. “You have a roof over your head, gifted from the heavens. How much more luck do you want?”
“That’s not mine,” I replied. “They’ll be back any day. And the money they left is all gone. I need to find money to pay bills and taxes.”
“My dear boy,” Barababu said, focused on picking a bone out of his fish. “Nobody who has gone is coming back. Have you seen anyone return yet? Your houseowners must have taken over a Hindu house in Pakistan by now, and you have been left with theirs. It’s enemy property, my son, enemy property! You’re the lucky bugger who was in the right place when he needed to be.”
He put a ball of rice and fish into his mouth and, looking beyond me, chewed with great absorption. His mouth empty at last, he chuckled softly and said as if to himself, “Such luck, and such naivety.” His mouth twisted and again he returned to his fish. A tiny speck of gravy clung to his moustache.
I could see Barababu did not think it possible, but despite what I had said to the mob, I truly had never considered Suleiman Chacha’s house as my own, to do with as I pleased. His words flung wide a half-open door in my mind.
“I suppose I could do something with the house,” I said. “Or else how will I pay the bills?”
“Look, son,” Barababu said – I noticed that he had taken to calling me “son” more and more – “there are scores of people who have come across the border, not
scores, hundreds, thousands, millions!” He gesticulated at the crowded streets around us. “They all need places to stay! Rent out those rooms! You’ll never need to work again. And if you still want work, I’ll introduce you to a relative of mine. He’s a builder, and he’s been saying he needs a young man like you.”
Barababu insisted on coming home with me that afternoon, to better advise me, he said. He cast an appreciative look at the garden as I was opening the gate and as soon as we entered, he darted to the corner and, hitching up his dhoti, shimmied up the mango tree.
“You don’t know how much my soul longs for this,” he said in rapture, looking down at me through a fringe of leaves on a high branch. “The village, our trees, the fruits I plucked as a boy. In Calcutta’s shanties where does one find trees? I’ve decided, my boy, I’m going to return to my village and tend whatever land I have.”
“Won’t you come down?” I said. “I’m not sure the branches are strong, it’s a young tree.”
“Oh, I know all about trees,” he said, clambering down with more agility than I would have thought possible for a man his age. He followed me to the front door muttering, “Two storeys, eh, and it must be on, what, two hundred square yards of land?” As I put my key into the lock, he thrust his hand into the dirty cloth bag that hung from his shoulder and produced a small glass bottle of clouded water.
“Muslim house, ehm, you know, one can’t be too careful … ” he said. Unscrewing the bottle, he sprinkled a few drops of water on the doorstep and, as if by accident, a few drops on me, mumbling an unintelligible mantra. Then, purification rites over, he walked in and examined each room in turn, murmuring approval, saying only, “This parrot, you must get rid of this parrot. Look how it’s shitting everywhere.”