Several dozen men hung about the back of the house. The air was heavy with agitation. The men scuffed at the ground with their chappals, pushed at each other’s shoulders in mock-fighting and smoked bidis, inhaling with nervous pecks. Sanjay was there, the young man with even features who was Sahib’s nephew.
‘Asha! Why aren’t you in school?’
Her baba, coming out of the house, caught sight of her.
‘It closed, Baba.’
‘Closed?’
‘They fear riots afterwards.’ A thin-faced man with a prominent nose nodded at Baba. ‘The bustee’s always first to burn.’
‘Go inside.’ Baba pointed her to the shack. ‘Stay there.’
As he finished speaking, those near the door shifted and made room and Sahib himself appeared. He hesitated on the threshold, looked round, as the men fell silent and turned to him.
‘Well, brothers.’ He smiled and it seemed a blessing on them all. Asha watched, entranced. In the bright sunlight, his skin looked wrinkled and rather sallow and she imagined saying: I will take care of you, sahib, you should eat better and come more often into the garden.
As she gazed, his eyes fell on her. ‘Ah, a sister too. You are coming, nah?’
‘Oh no, sahib.’ Baba spoke up at once. ‘So young, still.’
‘Nay, why not?’ Sahib clapped his hands. ‘You want to see your Hindustani brothers, Asha? See them fight for freedom?’
‘Han-ji, sahib. Very much.’ He knew her name. She would go anywhere with him, do anything.
Baba put his hands together, pleading. ‘She doesn’t realise, ji. She—’
‘Let her come.’ Sahib turned and began to stride towards the gate. Men threw their half-smoked bidis onto the gravel, crushed them and hurried to keep pace with him. She and her baba followed them out into the street.
The men walked with proud confidence. Sahib, at the front, set the pace. He strode with even steps and his head bobbed rhythmically, rising and falling amongst the youths jostling at his side. Asha, keeping by her baba towards the rear, swelled with pride.
Along the street, heads turned to look. An old man clapped his hands. Two young men on bicycles shouted greetings. Some men rose from chai stalls and the mouths of alleys to join them. Slowly the numbers grew. Only women, watching from half-shuttered windows or from rooftops where washing hung, looked subdued and drew back from the jauntily striding men.
‘Where are we going, Baba?’
His mouth was resolute. ‘To the Assembly. Where they make laws.’
She considered. A new Assembly building recently opened. The Crows showed a drawing in class. It looked as round as a bird’s nest. Indians, too, would meet there, the Crows explained, to help Britain to govern the country.
‘Why?’
‘Never mind.’ He still seemed stung by his exchange with Sahib. ‘Keep close to me.’
The buildings around them became more grand and the roads widened. Lawns stretched on both sides. The triumphal arch of India Gate rose ahead, then fell behind as they walked on. More and more people poured out now from all directions, crossing the expanses of grass, crowding the paths, filling the pavements. Sahib’s bobbing head became more difficult to see in the growing crowd. Young men skipped in and out of the road, dodging official cars, donkey carts and legions of bicycles. Asha wanted to run, to jump in the air. Only Baba looked grim-faced.
They reached a roundabout with a central mound of grass and an imposing stone fountain. The crowd ahead flowed round it as water finds a path round a boulder. Several young men scrambled and pulled themselves onto the monument. Men in the crowd cheered and shouted. Asha laughed. The young men splashed round the fountain basin, kicked up arcs of spray, then bent and threw showers of water with scooped hands over the passing crowd. Asha wanted to stop, to watch the fun, but Baba pulled her on.
The Assembly building was ringed with policemen. The wall they formed dammed up the approaching crowd and created a lake of protesters. The police-wallahs watched with grave faces. Their lathis twitched in their hands. Sahib moved round the curve of the building, drawing his own people with him. The crowd surged and in the sudden movement, she ducked past the men at her side and followed, her eyes searching always for Sahib.
‘Asha!’ Baba’s voice. She turned. The crowd sucked him back but he reappeared and fought through the bodies, the arms, to reach her until she could grab hold of the cotton folds of his kurta. His body was slick with sweat.
Sahib entered a metal gate and Asha and her baba stumbled after him, squeezing through the crush and bursting out down a narrow, fenced path around the perimeter of the building to a side door. A dull passageway. Echoes in her ears as chappals and shoes slapped on stone. The sudden shift from dazzling sunlight to the dim interior shot her vision with comets and threads of bright light and she faltered. At her side, her baba was pushed on by the force of the crowd and the folds of his kurta slipped from her fingers.
‘Baba!’
His face looked back, stricken, seeking hers. The gap between them widened.
She shouted again: ‘Baba!’
‘Come with me.’ Male hands on her shoulders.
She twisted to look. Sanjay. His nose and cheeks shone with sweat. She tried to wriggle free of his hands.
‘It’s alright, little sister. Keep moving.’
She had no choice. The surge of bodies in the confined space was too powerful to resist.
Sanjay kept his hands on her shoulders, steadying her and keeping her upright in front of him as they moved. She glowed with shame but he held her fast. Her feet stumbled up a flight of stone steps, then along a corridor, then more steps. They turned and burst at last through a final doorway into the open shell of the building.
The sight snatched away her breath. It was cavernous. Down below, wooden benches made circles round an open kernel of space. Here, sloping tiers of benches, filling rapidly all around them, created a broad viewers’ balcony.
Sanjay pushed her forward through shoving, clambering men to an empty place on a bench at one side and pushed her to sit. He sat at once beside her, shielding her with his body and claiming the space for them both even as others tried to force themselves into it. They sat in silence, panting, as the chaos around them settled.
‘Good view, nah?’ He smiled down at her, making her dizzy. ‘Remember me?’
She nodded, too shy to say his name aloud. ‘Sahib’s nephew.’
‘Sanjay Krishna. You’ve grown, Asha. And you’re a great student. Smart and hard-working, that’s what they say.’
She blinked. ‘Who does?’
He tapped the bridge of his nose with a finger. ‘Ah, little Asha. I am all-knowing.’
She drew her dupatta forward to hide her face and laced her fingers in her lap. His body was warm along her side and she shifted herself an inch away from him to avoid it. Sanjay Krishna. Of course she remembered.
He rose in his seat, pointed. ‘Your baba is there, see. Not so far.’
He was right. Baba sat ahead, a few rows from the front, jammed in amongst Sahib’s men. He turned and scanned the faces, looking for her. Beside her, Sanjay raised his hand and waved. Baba looked at the hand, at Sanjay, at his daughter beside him and gave a slow nod of the head. He looked relieved. Asha felt her shoulders relax.
Sanjay started to point out this and that to her. ‘Here, where we are sitting, this is the public gallery, nah? Where common man can come to watch. There, that’s the floor of the Assembly. That’s what they call it. The politicians debate and vote down there but only the Britishers have the right to approve the laws. In our land. How is that right, Asha, when they are so few and we, we Indians, are so many? Tell me.’
She shook her head. He confused her. He was so much older than her, already sixteen or perhaps seventeen, and had the same commanding presence as Sahib. They were packed tightly on the bench and his thigh was close to hers and it was embarrassing but also exciting and that made her feel ashamed.
‘So
me day all this will change. You’ll see.’ He lowered his voice to a whisper. His breath blew warmth on her cheek as he bent towards her. ‘Britishers will be packing their bags in a hurry to leave and Indians will be ruling their own affairs and Hindustan will be great again.’
She turned to look at him. He looked solemn, perfectly serious. He seemed to know so much. She twisted the hem of her dupatta in her lap and opened her mouth, then closed it again.
‘Hush. It’s starting.’ He pointed. Men were filling the official benches below. They were Indians drawn from all corners of the country, all types and all looks, from the broad-faced of the East to the dark-skinned of the south. Sanjay dug her in the ribs. ‘Listen and learn.’ He sat forward, his chin resting in his hands.
The first man rose to his feet and began to speak. The Crows taught in English and she understood it well now but this man’s speech was dull and his words difficult. He droned like a priest, on and on, shuffling a sheaf of paper in his hands. His subject was civil rights and a new law that threatened to curb them but he wandered around his argument like an old man lost in a forest.
She looked over the faces around her. Several men sat with their heads tilted forward on their chests, sleeping. She tried to count the number in the pit below. Even if half of them spoke, they would still be here until sunset. She shifted her weight. She started to feel thirsty and imagined drinking cold, fresh water. She tipped her head a fraction to her left. Sanjay was rigid, paying attention. He was clever, she could tell, and kind. He had been respectful. Little sister. She must seem a child to him.
A colossal bang. Her heart stopped. Head jerked forward, straining to see. Sanjay suddenly on his feet beside her. Men in front of them jumped up too and craned into the pit. Bitterness in the air. Acrid smoke clogged her nose. Bang. Again. A second explosion. Her mouth opened to scream but no sound came. Raucous shouts rising from below. Smoke, soft for a moment, suspended like time itself, suddenly billowing in clouds, expanding upwards, outwards in a second.
In the public gallery, cries, deafening male shouts. Inquilab Zindabad! Long live the Revolution! Hindustan Zindabad! Shapes swam in and out of the fog of smoke. Sahib, tall and composed, stood in the centre of it all. His arm held high. His men around him thrust their fists into the air, screaming slogans. Some faces convulsed with anger. Some were ruddy with exhilaration.
Whistles, police whistles. Heavy feet. Men packed in tightly around them now turned, shoved, climbed past them, wrestled to get out.
A hand fastened on her arm and pulled her to her feet. Sanjay, already turning to make his way to the left, to a side exit, dragged her with him.
‘Baba?’
‘Jaldee! Quickly.’
She twisted back to look for him as Sanjay tugged her along. Disembodied hands and heads swam into view where the smoke thinned only to be swallowed again.
‘Baba!’ Her voice fell into the noise and dissolved.
Sanjay swept her on. The slogans and the smoke faded as they forced their way along the bench, out of the side door and down a narrow stairway. All around fleeing men swore and shouted as they fought to escape. Behind them and ahead, police whistles screamed.
They reached the ground floor and flowed into the bright sunshine with the crowd. Men surged there, shouting. To one side, a khaki wall of uniforms curled round the edge of the crowd, penning in the crowd. Their lathis rose ready in their hands.
Sanjay pulled her to the far side, out of the path of the advancing police-wallahs. She scrambled after him. A shout went up. Deafening, drowning them. Inquilab Zindabad! The same cry as before but raucous now and catching fire through the crowd. Commotion. Men around them jostled and strained to see. She twisted.
Police-wallahs appeared at the exit. Prisoners marched between them, their heads pressed down to their chests by heavy hands, their arms pinned tightly behind them. Trails of blood showed at temples, foreheads. Her breath caught in her chest. Sahib was there, dignified despite the rough handling. She recognised his men around him. And there, in the midst of them, the slight figure of Baba, her own dear Baba, his head lowered, one eye puffed and swollen.
‘Baba!’ The sound stuck in her throat. ‘Baba!’
She struggled to get free of Sanjay’s grip, to run to Baba, but she was held fast. Sanjay bent and brought his face close to hers. His eyes were sharp.
‘Quiet. If you want to help him, keep quiet.’
Beyond him, the police-wallahs dragged the men round the curve of the building towards their vehicles. Her baba tripped and the men at his side dug their lathis into his back, forcing him to arch in pain.
Sanjay’s hot hands pinned her in position. She started to sob.
‘What’s wrong?’ An old man beside them turned to look. ‘Is she hurt?’
Sanjay answered. ‘She’s feverish.’ He forced a laugh. ‘You know how girls are. I should never have brought her.’
He marched her away. The passing bodies blurred as she cried. Slowly the press of men eased and they emerged at last into the cool of open space. Her breath juddered in her throat as she tried to stop crying. Behind them, the shouts grew wilder. The shrill notes of police whistles rose from a bed of chaos and a terrible splintering of wood on flesh, on bone.
Sanjay bundled her across the grassy lawns and, even as they rushed, the humid air made a cushion behind them and softened the sounds. They didn’t stop until they reached Sahib’s house. Once they were inside the gate, Sanjay turned to her, put his hands squarely on her shoulders.
‘Tell no one you were there. Understand? You went to school, then you played at home only. You know nothing about Sahib. Nothing. Promise me.’
She nodded. The lawn was silent and desolate beside them. Wherever she looked, the face of her own Baba hung there, bloodied, battered and bruised.
That night, she was woken by the pounding of fists on the gate. Loud voices, shouting; ‘Police! Open!’ Footsteps, running. Beams of light swinging round the garden, crashing into the shack through cracks and gaps.
She sat against the wall with her knees drawn up and shivered. They hurt her baba. Now they would hurt her.
The door was wrenched open and light streamed in. A young police-wallah, holding a lantern. She blinked, twisted her face away, reached for her dupatta to shield her eyes.
‘Come out!’
She tried to shrink into the wall.
He twisted and spoke to someone unseen behind him. ‘A girl only.’
A deeper voice. ‘Bring her out.’
The young man reached in and pulled her to her feet. She stumbled out, straining against him. The garden was unnaturally bright with lanterns. Police-wallahs swarmed across the lawn. Inside the house, lights bloomed and faded in one window after another as they searched the rooms.
Cook stood in his nightshirt by the back door. He was bleary-eyed and unshaven. His feet were bare. A police-wallah at his side held him fast at the elbow.
Another police-wallah, stout and sporting a flamboyant moustache, looked her up and down. ‘Who are you?’
She shook her head, playing dumb, and braced herself for a blow.
‘Where’s your mama?’
‘Dead.’ That much was true. ‘My baba also.’
The police-wallah looked at the shack. ‘You live here?’
She shrugged. Behind them, there was a scuffle at the gate and a white police-wallah strode in through the gate, a Britisher.
‘Who’s she?’ He spoke Hindustani with a heavy accent.
‘A servant only. Shall we bring her?’
The Britisher looked round. He said in English: ‘Bring him.’ He pointed to Cook. ‘Leave the girl. She looks a halfwit.’
Asha opened her mouth to shout back in English, to show what brains she had. Then she thought of Sanjay, pressing his face in hers and telling her to say nothing and she closed it again. The police-wallah dropped her arm and gave her a shove backwards. They turned and moved rapidly away across the lawn, sending pools of light swinging over
the darkened grass.
She crept back inside the shack and crouched there, wrapping her arms round her body and hugging her ribs as she watched them through the half-open door. In a matter of minutes, the men and the light had gone, taking with them the old chowkidar on the gate and Cook. The house fell silent.
She sat up for the rest of the night, wrapped round in a blanket. The sky slowly lightened to grey. The shadows in the shack softened. The only evidence of her baba was the cotton bag hanging limply from a nail, bulging with the shapes of his block soap and razor and the cotton folds of his spare lunghi, soft and faded with overwashing.
When it was time, she went into the deserted kitchen, boiled up a pan of chai and ate a piece of stale roti. She opened the cupboards and checked over the food. A pail of rice. Spices. Sugar. Flour. In the cool larder, a round slab of butter.
Afterwards she washed her face, smoothed down her clothes and went to school. She never saw Cook or the chowkidar again.
Chapter Seven
After some weeks living alone, she came home from school to find the gate locked. She put her eye to the narrow gap and tried to make out the shapes of the garden, the house. A movement inside. She twisted her body to get a better angle and watched. A man, there, on the ground floor.
The figure moved here and there through the house, sometimes disappearing from view, then reappearing. She couldn’t make out his features. The sun fell hard on her head and made her dizzy.
Finally the back door opened and Sanjay Krishna emerged, cigarette in hand. He stood and smoked, looking out over the garden.
She banged on the gate and called: ‘Over here! Let me in!’ She was afraid to use his name.
He started, dropped his cigarette and ground it into sparks with the toe of his chappal. Then he crossed the lawn and opened the gate a fraction.
‘Are you alone?’
She nodded.
He led her across the garden to the house and then down the corridor to Sahib’s room at the front. It was shuttered and dim. Dust hung thick in falling arrows of light. He made his way round the room, touching small objects on the table and mantelpiece as he passed. A heavy glass ashtray, which Sahib liked to use. A leather-bound book. A pencil.
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