The Homing Pigeons...

by Sid Bahri

  My father got married to my mother Gurleen Kaur in 1976. She was the daughter of an old acquaintance of my grandfather from Lahore. My maternal grandfather had chosen to remain a farmer tilling his fields in Bazpur. It didn’t take long for my mother to conceive and before 1977 turned into 1978, I was born and named Gagandeep Singh – an heir to the family business of garment manufacturers and exporters. As a child, I was lanky and thin, which prompted my parents to see the doctor every fortnight. They thought I was suffering from a serious disorder that refused to make me gain weight.

  My earliest memories were of my grandfather whom I called Darji. Actually, everyone called him that. We would sit for hours on the jute charpoy as he would recount stories of his ancestral home in Lahore. He would tell me about his fields, the sowing of the land and harvesting of the spoils. He had been successful at business but his heart lay in the joys of agriculture. Darji and I shared a special bond, stronger than I ever did with my mother or father.

  My father was a busy man and would seldom be home. His business trips would take him abroad quite often. Like most children, I would look forward to his return when he would bring me back miniature cars, the sorts that were only a dream. We owned a Premier Padmini, a sad excuse for a car but then Maruti hadn’t made its foray into the Indian market and the only other option was an Ambassador, a steel behemoth that would need to be warmed up by lighting a fire under the engine. My mother was beginning to take on some of the responsibilities that my grandfather had relinquished at the factory by making short trips out to Faridabad in the Padmini.

  I was nearly seven and sported a white handkerchief atop the bun on my head, fastened by many cross running rubber- bands. When I got off the school bus that belonged to the Modern School in Delhi, I was happy. It was the beginning of the Diwali vacation and my mother and I were going to go to Chandigarh to visit my maternal grandmother. My father was in the United States meeting clients. I was a little sad to go away without Darji but my Nani was such a wonderful cook.

  The next day was Diwali, the festival of lights. I looked forward to the evening when the entire city would be dressed in lights and the din of the firecrackers would drown all other sounds. My bag of firecrackers was inside Darji’s room. It held my fantasy and I would sneak in every so often to check on them. It was finally evening and under the close supervision of my grandfather, I lit a few crackers and then we went inside for the puja.

  It was sad that Dad had to extend his trip in the States and couldn’t be there with us at the time of the puja. Although, the festival was Hindu and we were Sikhs, it was still celebrated with the same vigour and intensity as any other Hindu family would.

  We were to leave the morning after Diwali and I was made to sleep early that evening. The next morning my grandfather was dressed up even before I woke up; I was dressed in a jiffy and took the front seat in the Padmini before my mother had a chance to object. Darji drove us to the bus terminus, which seemed an awful distance away, even though the traffic was light. My mother touched my grandfather’s feet and I hugged him. It was a tough choice between being with him and Nani’s kheer. He kissed me on the forehead and his parting words were, “Be good, always”.

  We boarded the bus and were in Chandigarh in about six hours, travelling through a muddy, dusty and narrow highway. Jassi Mamoo, my mother’s brother was there to receive us and while he didn’t even own a Padmini, he got us home safely on a motor cycle. My maternal grandfather had passed away and his sons had chosen to sell off the lands in Bazpur. They had moved to Chandigarh and ran a grain trade business. The business was struggling and they didn’t own a car but they were warm and hospitable people.

  There wasn’t much to do in Chandigarh, with the exception of food. Jassi Mamoo’s son was two years elder than me and he would take me around the colony on his bicycle. He would ride on the seat while I sat on the rod between the handle and the seat. We would return home drenched in sweat and stinking. While our parents would shout at us, Nani would dish out my favourites. The black dal with a generous dollop of ghee would take away most of the pain of riding the bicycle on the rod.

  The vacation was almost over; school would start the following Monday, ending two weeks of a well enjoyed break and Mamma was already busy packing our bags.

  It was to be the eleven o’clock train that we were to take back to Delhi. I was awake and ready in time. We were just about to leave for the train station when a phone call changed my life. I didn’t understand it then, but our plan was cut short and so were my hair. Indira Gandhi had been assassinated by her bodyguards.

  Radhika

  “Didi! Meera Didi and Bhaiya are here,” Ghanshyam, my late husband’s servant brings me back to reality, to the present. I still sit on the wrought iron chair in the lawns in front of the house. I have absolutely no recollection of the time and I look at the pot of tea that has gone cold while I have been reminiscing. I get up and walk in the general direction of the house, still in a trance, remembering what I had once been.

  Meera is dressed in a sari, a rich sequined and gaudy piece of cloth that reminds me that money can never buy class. She could almost be one of those cheap, shimmery statues that you get at the Diwali Mela. I may have been one of them if not for my association with Ms Kapoor. Meera’s husband tows along, almost lamb-like, behind the proverbial Mary.

  I look Meera in the eye; there is a gleam in her eyes today, the twinkle that screams of victory and success. Her eyes say, “I have you out of my life,” yet, outwardly she says, “Good function yesterday”. I hope she doesn’t see the same in my eyes.

  I am not sure if she is asking me a question or if it is a statement. I choose to answer it with a simple “Yes” that will fit both bills.

  “What’s your plan now?” she asks me.

  She is obviously not going to beat about the bush. There are no pleasantries or feigned attempts at being polite.

  “Well, I still haven’t figured it out,” I reply truthfully. While I have known all along that I will have to move away, the details are still hazy.

  “Well, I am planning on moving here myself once I’m back from our honeymoon,” she says without a trace of emotion.

  “I understand,” I say, without letting her man feel embarrassed that he will be moving in with his wife, rather than the other way around.

  “Well, Vishal wanted me to stay at his house, but it’s only got two bedrooms and his parents stay there too. So, it’s better that we just move in here,” she obviously has no qualms about making her husband feel worthless.

  It is a knack that she possesses and loves to display. I have been at the receiving end of this quite often and I know exactly how it feels. I steal a glance in Vishal’s direction – he stands there without cringing at the insults that Meera is heaping on him.

  “When do you leave for your honeymoon?” I ask.

  “Day after tomorrow and we’ll be gone for about ten days,” she says.

  That leaves about twelve days to put down on paper and execute a move of residence. I fiddle with my hair. I always do that when I am unsure or nervous.

  Lunch is served – Ghanshyam has put together a vegetarian meal, considering that Vishal is a vegetarian.

  “Why’ve you made vegetarian food?” Meera asks Ghanshyam.

  “I thought Bhaiya is vegetarian so….” Ghanshyam begins to explain himself but is cut short when Meera says, “He’ll start eating meat”.

  Vishal doesn’t look upset that the woman he has married is going to change so much around him.

  They leave shortly after lunch, leaving me a nervous wreck. I am not sure how I will be able to get everything done in such a hurry. I don’t even know where to start.

  It has been three days since the lunch and I now have a semblance of a to-do list. The list is a mile long and I wonder how I’ll be able to complete everything over the next nine days. I delegate more than half of the list to Ghanshyam and the other servants. Gulmohar Park, in south Delhi is going to be my des
tination.

  Secretly, I am happy to break away from Lucknow; the city has never held my fancy. Like Chandigarh, Lucknow is a gossip monger’s delight. It is a nightmare to survive the virtual dissection of every move, especially when you are the wife of a leading businessman of the city. The place grants no anonymity and it will be relieving to walk into a store where the store manager doesn’t recognize you.

  The most important item on my to-do list is something that I will be unable to delegate – a visit to the safety locker of the State Bank of India in Hazratganj. Under the hordes of rich gold and diamond jewellery that are stacked up inside the locker, is a thin silver chain that has tarnished, but still remains more valuable than the millions that the other jewellery is worth.

  I leave the house calling the chauffer Ramesh to bring out the shiny BMW onto the porch. It is ironical; my late husband lived the life of a miser for the most part of his life, riding an age old Fiat. It took a lot of coaxing to convince him to upgrade his car, a rare occasion when Meera and I were on the same side of the fence. He had upgraded, going from the Fiat, straight onto a BMW, but died within three months of ordering it. The car pulls over and Ramesh holds the door ajar as I slip into the plush leather upholstery of the back seat.

  The locker is only a short distance away from my residence and we cross St. Francis College until I reach the State Bank of India. The manager ushers me in as if I have done him a favour by visiting the branch.

  This is another thing that I hate about Lucknow. Everyone is over sweet and unnaturally polite. They almost give me diabetes. I reach into the largest safety locker located within the vault and draw out a small pink coloured box that contains a tarnished silver chain – a gift that Aditya had given me a long time ago. I retrieve the pink box and close the locker. The jewellery is mine to take with me, but it isn’t needed. It can stay in the fireproof safe for there are no emotions attached to them. The jewellery is valuable, yet so worthless when compared to a thin, simple, silver chain.

  Aditya

  Much later in life, I would understand that an ego tussle between a Sikh cleric and the then Prime Minister had changed my life, forever. It started with the Sikh cleric standing for his rights, or that was what he proclaimed, deeming him an anti-national. A holy shrine was desecrated and the Sikhs wanted revenge. The Sikh bodyguards got the community their revenge and then the Hindus wanted their revenge, against my community at large. In the pursuit of revenge, most victims were innocent. They neither believed in the cleric nor in the ability of the Prime Minister, but they were punished. Sometimes, I would wonder if religion was really that important.

  The madness manifested itself in the form of riots, arson and focused destruction of property that was even remotely connected with the Sikhs. Our factory in Faridabad and the house were burnt down, with my Darji inside it. It was luck or the lack of it that we weren’t in Delhi, where insanity took the most brutal forms.

  Our return to Delhi wasn’t until two weeks later when some sense of normalcy had been restored. My hair had been cut to a short length and my name changed to Aditya Sharma, through a public notice. It is always difficult to change, especially if it is your identity that changes. Everyone in Chandigarh thought that it was quite unnecessary but my mother was scared. She thought that it was best for me to lose my hair than to lose my life.

  Somehow, my mother gathered enough courage to make the return trip to Delhi. We stood in front of the once white coloured house that had been the funeral pyre of my grandfather. Today, it stood charred, black and sooty. My father had received the news too, and had delayed his return from New York. We stood there in silence, grieving for our loss, without a shelter over our heads. A family of garment manufacturers that now only had two suitcases full of clothes.

  My father’s eyes were cold and expressionless; grieving for a father that he could not give the last rites to. He put some ashes from the charred house into an urn and laid a garland at the entrance of the front door. The next trip was to the factory, an arduous journey on a public bus that would make the Padmini feel like a Lamborghini. The stares on the bus made us more uncomfortable; each stare questioning us how were we still alive?

  We reached Faridabad and went to the factory on the back of a Rickshaw. We saw more ashes and more charred concrete. We heard more stories of the devastation that had occurred. There were horror stories of how the clothes and the stock of cloth inside had burned incessantly. While I didn’t understand much at that age, the impression was grim. Tired of standing, I tugged at my mother’s shirt and asked her “What happened to our factory?”

  “It was burnt down,” she replied. “Why?” I asked earnestly.

  That was a question that most people can still not answer. My mother was no exception. She shrugged her shoulders and turned around, so I couldn’t see the tears that were freely flowing down her cheeks.

  Ironically, the insurance company that had insured the properties made a killing in the fine print. Of the few exclusions where the insurance policy would not be liable to pay us were the destruction of property arising out of an act of rioting or arson. The loans on the property, the stock of clothes and the advances against expected deliveries, were all the liability of my father. With no assets against them, it took several months to get out of the financial mess that had occurred as fallout of the arson.

  I was admitted to Yadavindra Public School. My mother and I were staying with Jassi Mamoo’s family in Chandigarh while my father tried to wrap up his affairs in Delhi. The land took time to sell, and went at huge discounts. The buyers knew my father’s situation and the real estate hawks knew that it was a distress sale.

  It was only after five months, in the March of nineteen eighty five, that we were together as family. The debts had been paid off, the lands sold and the customers informed. We had no home, no car – not even a Padmini, and only six thousand rupees left to our name.

  We rented a house in Chandigarh for two-and-a-half thousand rupees in rent. The landlord asked for a deposit and we paid, not knowing if there would be a way to raise money to pay next month’s rent.

  Radhika

  I wake up tired and wilted even though I have slept for a straight ten hours. The journey from Lucknow was tough – first, the airline cancelled the flight. In these times of recession, business travel has dropped. The airlines aren’t getting enough passengers to make the flight from Lucknow to Delhi worthwhile. Very few people from Lucknow are willing to spend money on an airline ticket when a train ticket is about a third of the fare.

  Somehow, I got a reservation on the train. I had barely boarded the train when I got the news that there was a minor accident along the route and traffic was delayed. The journey that should’ve taken no longer than six hours, took ten.

  Laxman picked me up from the train station and brought me home. Despite sleeping for ten straight hours, I am still a little weary, probably because of the alien bed. The mattress is sagging and that prompts me to create a new to-do list. Even while some items on the Lucknow list remain pending. I drink the water from the bottle on my bedside and I call out to Laxman to make me a cup of tea.

  Laxman knocks on the door and serves me a cup of tea. There is no teapot; just an old bone china cup that is chipped at the edges. I disguise my revulsion and Laxman leaves. I sip on the tea and am tempted to throw it up immediately. It turns out to be tea leaves steeped in milk. The cream in the milk coats my tongue and I leave the cup three quarters full. I am not able to tolerate it anymore.

  The weariness refuses to go without a cup of tea and I go down the wide staircase to the hall. I vaguely remember the kitchen being beyond the hall. I walk into the kitchen and I feel like an alien. I don’t even remember when I last saw the insides of a kitchen. Cooking was never my forte or passion. I open the cabinet and the door almost disintegrates in my hand. I peer into the dingy cabinet but I can’t find a kettle or a sauce pan. The cabinets are decaying. I wonder how many termites share this home with me. I call out
to Laxman who is outside tending to the kitchen garden. He runs the few steps to come back into the kitchen, panting. The beedis that he reeks of aren’t helping his stamina.

  “Where’s the kettle?” I ask.

  “We don’t have a kettle,” he replies.

  “A saucepan? How did you boil the milk? Sorry, the tea?” I ask.

  He opens another cabinet. The handle on the cabinet comes off when he yanks it too hard. He brings out a freshly washed, almost wet, yet dirty saucepan with a broken melamine handle. He holds it out for me without an iota of disgust.

  “Is this the best that we have?” I ask. Even before he answers, I reach my hand out for the shabby container that faintly resembles a saucepan.

  “Yes. Otherwise there is the patila,” he reaches into the cabinet again, his head completely inside the hollow, before he emerges with a huge brass pot. The brass pot is tarnished. It hasn’t been used in ages. I am not surprised because it’s big enough to serve an army.

  “No, this will do. Where are the tea leaves and milk?” I ask. I move towards the sink to scrub the saucepan that I have in hand. It will have to be changed but till then a scrub will do.

  I turn around to see Laxman pulling at the door of the refrigerator. The door almost drops off the hinge. I can’t control myself any longer. I almost shout when I say, “Why is everything in shambles? Why don’t you get this repaired?”

  “Madam, it only came off last week. I’ll get it repaired,” he says. His voice is a whisper. I don’t want him to run away. I don’t want him to become a Ghanshyam who saw me as a tyrant. I control my anger. Laxman isn’t to blame because when my husband had been alive, he would come to Delhi alone. Once or twice a year, I would accompany him, but I had never bothered to venture anywhere near the kitchen. If Laxman knew any better, why would he be working as a help?