by Uday Prakash
Red flashed from his eyes like sparks. ‘I know full well that the US invaded Iraq only for the oil. But they’ll be able to buy in oil whatever they’ve spent to hide this fact. The US would invade India, too, if they extracted that much oil. Just wait, one day either the whole world will equal the US, or it’ll be the whole world minus the US.’
One night Suri, who was almost eight-and-a-half, was writhing in pain, crying like any other kid his age. It was the first time he acted like this. Normally when in pain he went out quietly and fought the pain on his own. He lay down and put his head in his mother’s lap. ‘Mummy, just find me some poison,’ he whimpered. ‘I can’t take it anymore.’ His tears wouldn’t stop. In between sobs he said, ‘I just don’t understand why people are born whose lives are filled with so much hurt.’ A little while later his pain subsided. ‘Mummy, I need a pill the size of the sun to make the pain go away.’ Then, still in tears, ‘Tell Papa I want to live, Mummy. I don’t want to die yet. Not this soon. There’s no way we might be able to find the money to be able to afford to cure me?’
Suri’s voice was full of such hopelessness and longing. Shobha caressed her son’s head in her lap and herself started to weep. What could she possibly do to save the life of her son? Ideas failed her.
That night Shobha had a deep change of heart. She calculated that even if they sold the house and everything they owned, and recovered their mortgage, they would still be short of the one-and-a-half or two million they needed to have Suri treated properly, or even cured. Their only recourse was to offer their prayers, which they did anyway. And it was only due to the grace of god that Suri was still alive. She decided that from that day forward, she would try to focus less attention on Suri’s eventual death and create space for him where he didn’t have to be continuously traumatised by his ‘fixed mortality.’ She told Chandrakant her idea.
Suri started watching movies on the VCR like Qayamat se Qayamat Tak, Lagaan, Devdas, Main Hoon Na, Kaun. Shobha and Chandrakant took him to out to the movies a couple of times. Both of them were acutely aware that Suri was only going to live as long as he was going to live. So they wanted him to give him as many experiences as they could, within their means. Sweets, chaat, pizza, hamburgers, Pepsi, Coca Cola, amusement parks like Appu Ghar, the zoo, the Qutub Minar.
Chandrakant told me about a truck that had run off the road and hit a tree. The driver was killed, and his passenger was taken to the hospital. Chandrakant, Shobha and Suri were on their way home in a rickshaw. Suri too saw the tree and almost ran to it; its trunk was damaged in several places. Suri kept quiet for a while before saying, ‘The tree is always silent, sitting in its own spot. Even if it wanted to fight someone, like that tree, it would only be to save itself.’
Even though Suri’s strange, tangled thoughts deeply vexed people, Chandrakant and Shohba felt sometimes the real kid inside would emerge, the one that was simply and straightforwardly a child his own age, with the same wishes, desires, obstinacy, tantrums. He was often quite stubborn about getting to eat the foods he liked. Like besin sweets, red amaranth, fried moong.
Sometimes when people paid more attention to Amar, they saw the envy and jealousy in Suri’s eyes. It was true that fiveyear-old Amar had more stuff than his older brother, Suri. The main reason was that he went to school. He had a cute little vinyl backpack with Donald Duck and Roger Rabbit on it. Plus notebooks and lots of books with all sorts of pretty pictures. Amar also had more clothes. He had two changes of his school uniform, two pairs of socks, one pair of shoes, two ties. He had a nice little blue square tiffin lunchbox that held another little compartment inside. Shobha packed parathas in the tiffin and put a few cookies in the compartment inside. He also had a red water bottle in the shape of an elephant and if you lifted up its trunk it sprayed blue water.
Seven was the time Amar normally left home for school, and Shobha and Chandrakant spent an hour getting him ready. They were totally focused on Amar, who had begun to try getting out of going to school. While getting him ready they had no time to pay attention to Suri.
The Blue Bells school bus stopped right out front; the bus was packed with other schoolboys and girls. Sometimes Shobha, but mostly Chandrakant, would go out to put Amar on the bus. After he got on and said ‘ta ta’ and the bus pulled away they went back inside.
Every once in awhile Suri too tagged along to see Amar off, ambling far behind the others with his hunched shoulders bearing the load of his heavy, misshapen head. The boys and girls lit on Amar as he approached, giggling and calling out to him, waving and telling him to hurry up. Suri watched this silently, breaking into a happy smile. But then he felt that some of the kids and the girls in particular were looking at his weird head – the kids got a little scared, they began pointing at him and whispering things to each other, and this frightened Suri. After that, he didn’t come back for a few days and just stayed home. Then, after a little while, he would try again.
In the morning Shobha sometimes noticed Suri looking covetously at his brother when he was getting dressed for school, putting on his crisp, white, freshly washed shirt, blue shorts and red tie, with matching white socks and shiny black shoes. She was assailed by ugly thoughts. After all, Suri was not well. There was no question that he was not healthy or normal. What would happen if he did something to himself because he felt frustrated, or deprived? Or what if he got angry and jealous of his brother and went and did something stupid. It was true, though, that compared to Amar, Suri didn’t have much stuff. A couple of t-shirts, two pairs of shorts, a pair of sweatpants. And all cheap stuff at that. His shoes, too, were nothing special, just some dull grey no-name sneakers she had bought on the street. Every morning, Shobha nagged and nagged Amar to brush his teeth, and even had to squeeze the Colgate herself onto the toothbrush. Then there was Suri, who did everything on his own. He liked the cool minty taste and smell so much that one time he squeezed a little extra onto his brush; Shobha saw, and yelled at him. ‘Hey, do you think that’s candy? Easy does it!’
Suri froze. He never did it again. Then there was the time Amar had got ready for school and set off with Chandrakant, leaving Suri alone with her, and he said, ‘Mummy, you’re right to think the way that you do. Why waste good money for no reason buying clothes and shoes for someone whose life you don’t put any stock in? I think you should do something similar with that someone’s food. Who knows when he might die? Until then who knows if he’s properly digesting the food he eats?’
Shobha couldn’t believe what she heard. ‘Have you lost your mind again? Always thinking crazy thoughts?’ She ran her hand along Suri’s head. His eyes welled with tears. ‘Son, as far as life and death go, nobody knows when and where you go forwards or backwards. The doctors only gave you until two or two-and-a-half, but you’re still with us, thanks to the grace of Auliya and Vitthal. And look at your papa’s boss, Gulshan Arora, who said that after he turn one hundred and five, he would ride that morning train, loud and high into the sky. He didn’t even make it to eighty. He folded long before.’
Suri found this hysterical. ‘Mummy, if I live to be one hundred and five, can you imagine how big my head would be? And where would I live? And who would come to lift that head of mine?’
***
Amar didn’t go to school on Sundays. Suri stomped his feet like a little kid: he wanted to take Amar’s tiffin, packed with parathas, go to the park, and sit on a bench under the neem tree and eat them. For his outing, Shobha packed two parathas, potato curry, and two cookies. Suri also brought a water bottle along. The crisis began when Amar noticed his brother making off with his tiffin and his water bottle; weeping and wailing ensued. The brothers began pushing and shoving each other. Suri would have strangled Amar if Shobha hadn’t come swiftly to remove his hands from his throat. That day, Shobha saw a wildness in Suri’s eyes, as in a writhing, wounded animal that suddenly exhibits savagery.
Suri looked right at Shobha and said in a cold, unwavering voice, ‘I want a tiffin box of my own.
And you, all you living people, will buy one for me. From now on, I won’t be eating lunch inside this house.’
From then on Suri took his lunch box and tottered down the steps.
***
The truth was, however, that these kinds of incidents were few and far between. Most of the time Suryakant was nothing but loving and affectionate with his younger brother, Amarkant. And after he started going to the Jupiter Network cyber café, he began bringing back toffees, magic pop ups, and chocolate bars for his brother; it turned out that the owner, Rohan Chawla, gave him money. Chandrakant told me that Rohan told him his son Suri had a ‘genius mind.’ He added that if he didn’t have any work to do at home, he could go spend time at the café, and he’d be happy to pay him seven or eight hundred a month. Suri was a quick learner on the computer, and picked up Photoshop, learned how to blog, and do some graphic design work. He started learning 3-D animation on his own, without help from others; Rahul Chawla was awestruck.
Suri helped Amar when he had homework. When he had drawing assignments, Suri would draw them or colour them in with crayons or coloured pencils so vividly that Amar inevitably got ‘very good’ or ‘excellent’ marks. But one time Shobha yelled at him, ‘If you do all of your brother’s work, what’s he gonna learn? Let him do his own work!’ Suri stopped what he was doing and stood up.
‘Mummy, I want you to know that the drawing of the little shack and tree and sunset I’ve just made is the last picture I’ll ever draw.’ He staggered over the balcony and quietly went outside.
Shobha took a deep breath.
***
There are two other important facts about Suryakant. One is that he began sleeping less and less. It may have been that he did what ever he could to put off going to sleep – reading, watching TV – since the headaches and breathing problems were at their worst after he got up. One good thing about the new place was that the TV was in the living room.
The other key fact was that Suri was studying English and learning fast. He began watching English-language channels and reading books and newspapers in English. Sometimes he called me and we had long talks; Rohan Chawla let him use the phone at Jupiter Networks as much as he wanted. Suri surfed the internet and did a lot of instant messaging.
He called me one day. ‘Uncle, I’ve got the idea that before Independence, it made more sense to study Hindi. Now it’s better to be able to speak English.’ He paused to think about what he just said. ‘When the English were here, it was English that made us into slaves. Now that the English are gone, it’s Hindi that’s turned us into slaves.’
This is how he talked. Another time he told me, ‘Uncle, there’s no such thing as the Third World. There are only two worlds, and both of them exist everywhere. In one live those who create injustice, and all the rest, the ones who have to put up with the injustice, live in the other.
Much later I found out that Suryakant had kept a diary. He wrote all sorts of stuff in both Hindi and English. It looks like he wrote down his thoughts in the notebook, or what he was reading. The notebook was pretty thick, and mostly filled up with, it can be surmised, what he read and thought.
He had lovely handwriting, in both English and Hindi. From page twenty-seven of his notebook:
(in English)
Everything is looted, spoiled, despoiled,
Death flickering his black wing,
Anguish, hunger – then why this lightness overlaying everything...
(in Hindi)
I am trying to remember who these lines belong to. Are they
Anna Akhmatova’s?
From page thirty-two:
They’ve erased all my words from everywhere, and now I have died, absolutely died, my huge huge head, with its pain inside that can’t be cured, bullet marks and blood stains all around, and everywhere people are eating, people are laughing, didn’t they get the gruesome news, or are they part of the crime? They’re counting the money on camera and off and I am wondering whether my head is India that’s slowly dying...?
Shobha and Chandrakant didn’t really understand the writings of their sick child, Suryakant. The two of them couldn’t read and write very well, and didn’t know English at all. They only spoke Hindi and Marathi, and lived a very meek existence. Chandrakant once said to me, ‘You’ve definitely left your mark on Suri. He’s always reading your books, and he’s always marking up the pages.’
Shobha told me in tears that just about a week ago he said that there was something he had read in one of uncle’s books he wanted to come over and ask about.
But I’ll never find out what it was in which book of mine he wanted to find out about. He died before he could ask.
It was the death that for the past six years everyone had feared might happen at any moment. Suryakant had fought mightily on his own behalf to stay alive and stave death off.
Every night Suri held back the clock hands of the time bomb in his head, buying himself a day or two more. He was unwavering in his efforts. It was a desire to live shared by tens of millions of others who suffer injustice and live inordinately difficult lives.
But one day Suri decided he was done and gave up.
How? Why? This is what Chandrakant and Shobha told me as we were coming back from Nigambodh Ghat, where Suri’s last rites were performed.
A HAWKER, SUN ON THE ROOF TOP, THE PRESSURE COOKER’S WHISTLE THAT WHISTLES AND WHISTLES, AND A CHINESE CAP GUN
The date was 25 December, 2004.
The high temperature in Delhi on that day was sixteen degrees centigrade, and the low was three point four.
Even at nine thirty in the morning, fog was so thick that that there still was no trace of the sun. Cars on the road at eight still had their headlights on, and were crawling along like ants. Visibility was almost zero; you couldn’t see more than a few metres ahead.
Chandrakant, after waiting forty-five minutes outside with Amar for the Blue Bells bus that never came, returned home.
Suddenly around ten the fog lifted, and the bright, shining sun revealed itself. Shobha was making channa dhal in the pressure cooker that day. As soon as the sun came out, all the women who lived in the C-block apartment building scurried up to the rooftop. Shobha took her sewing machine and carpet and went to the roof, too – not the same carpet as the magic carpet from Jahangirpuri, but one she bought after they had moved to Ashok Vihar. She was up sewing until two-thirty the night before. She had been wearing glasses for the past five years. She had until three that day to finish sewing fabric for a store called Kalpana Boutique and Design Garments in Deep Market. With the deadline, she was stressed out and in a rush.
She spread out the rug and sat with her sewing machine. She was half listening for the sound of the steam whistle on the pressure cooker with the channa dhal she had put on. It could blow at any moment. She would count how many times the whistle blew, and run down and turn off the stove when it went off for the eighth time.
Suri and Amar were sitting with her on the rug. Suri was writing something in Amar’s notebook, and Amar was leaning over, watching quietly. That’s when Bimla Sahu, who was sitting just a little distance away, said, ‘Your oldest one has been spitting off the balcony and ripping up paper into little bits and throwing them off like confetti. Tell him to stop. I’ve also found peanut shells and candy wrappers outside my door a few times.’
Bimla Sahu had announced this deliberately loud enough so that all the other women sitting on the rooftop would hear.
Suri, who had been hunched over Amar’s notebook writing something, also listened. He lifted his giant head and said hoarsely, ‘That’s not true, Auntie! I’ve never thrown anything off the balcony. And I’ve definitely never spat off it. Do you really think I’m that uncouth and stupid?’
That was enough to make Bimla Sahu, who had such a sturdy frame the women of the Janta Flats called her ‘the wrestler’ or ‘toughie,’ turned several shades darker. Then she let loose.
‘Oh, look who’s using his big mouth! Everything I sai
d you do – you know you do! You yellow cowardly little kid!’
Suri’s breathing quickened. ‘You’re lying, Auntie. And you don’t know how to do anything except make drama. When’s the last time you had your blood pressure checked?’
No sooner had he said this than Bimla Sahu clanged down the thali from which she was picking out pebbles from the rice. She screamed and gestured with her hands, ‘Oh, are you gonna check my blood pressure? Why don’t you fix that jug of a head of yours first? You probably don’t even realize you’re drooling off the balcony. If you have to go out on the balcony, stand on the right side. D’you have to stand right over my head?’
Pain was written all over Suri’s face. His lips began to tremble and he was having difficulty breathing; all of this frightened Shobha. She hoped this wasn’t the start of one of Suri’s massive headaches. He was an extremely sensitive boy, and Bimla Sahu had really got to him.
Shobha made sure the other women could hear as she shot back. ‘Hey little miss tough stuff, why do you have to pick fights with little kids? If you need someone to fight with, don’t forget you can count on me!’
The emphasis she put on you can count on me, the title of a popular film those days, was so good that the women on the roof top broke into hysterics. The tide of laughter was so powerful that it swept up Amar and Suri, too.
And, finally, tough-stuff-wrestler Bimla Sahu herself wasn’t immune to its force. ‘Not bad. If Shah Rukh sees your moves he’ll cart you off to elope.’ She then returned to picking pebbles out of her rice.
Just then – it must have been five or six minutes after eleven – the shout of the street hawker came from below. The C-block apartment building was five stories tall. All of the apartments’ roofs were connected; Amar, along with the other kids, ran over to the railing.