“Dear Leela,” wrote Vimala. “The photos you sent were very nice. How lovely Preethi is. We were glad to hear that she has got into a prestigious university for her master’s degree. What a clever daughter you have, Leelu! As for Arjun, we were glad to hear he has found a job in Vancouver, this way at least one of your children is close by. He must be much in demand in the marriage market. A number of our acquaintances here are inquiring after him and want to know if he is thinking of marriage. There are lots of eligible girls here.” Leela paused at that and wondered what her cousin would say if she knew about Arjun’s gori girlfriend, Fern. Leela had just found out herself, and after a night of tossing at the prospect of half-and-half—or indeed one-third—grandchildren, she gave up, defeated by fractions, and shrugged mentally. It had been difficult for her—even painful, she remembered, so painful that she had put away, in some dusty corner of her mind, her memories of her large, sad mother. But it would not be difficult in this world, where change and movement and hybridity were commonplace, for any children that Arjun and Fern chose to have. Not so difficult, anyway.
She continued reading. “Every letter you tell me that one of your friends is coming to India, but when are you coming? Even your children we have not seen, except in photographs. It is time for you to come home, Leela.”
Her stop arrived and Leela got off the bus. Yes, it had been too long. Somehow, without her noticing it, seventeen years had gone by since they had left Bangalore. The world had come apart since then and had fitted itself together again with altered borders. Old countries had become two or three new ones, walls had gone up and had been torn down, ancient enmities had been buried and then renewed with greater rage. Even the neighbourhood where she had lived for a decade and a half had altered beyond recognition. Mrs. Wu and JB Foods had long ago found themselves in competition with a dozen new stores that sold everything they carried, and then some. Korean, Indian, Sri Lankan, Chinese, Italian, Iranian and Greek grocery stores had sprung up or expanded into mini-supermarkets. Lalloo had sold Far Out Travels and was now in the real estate business. His former company now competed with three new travel agencies, each challenging the others with cut-throat pricing and aggressive customer service, offering cheap fares to India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Middle East. In tiny offices over these stores, shady lawyers offered to make recent arrivals’ immigrant status legal for two thousand dollars.
Nowadays, goras who came here wandered around with a dazed look in their eyes as if they were foreigners in their own country. Landscapes had moved across oceans and superimposed themselves on this corner of the western world. Populations had shifted and created new understandings, belief systems and tensions. Old enmities were forgotten and new ones established. Abroad had turned into Home, and time had turned desis into strangers to their own past.
The real India had overtaken Leela’s memories of it. The news she saw in the two-week-old Indian magazines that Balu brought home sometimes seemed to belong to a country she didn’t know at all. Even the pictures of men and women in the advertisements astonished Leela—it was as if these people’s bone structure had altered. They looked like her children—Indian, but with a subtle glossy western-ness coating their brown bodies.
She was suddenly overcome with an urgent desire to go back There and see if the India she had left behind had really changed so much. For many years she had pushed the idea of returning to the back of her mind, mostly because she could not afford to go. Next year, she would promise herself, next year. And each time the money was used for something else—school trips, music lessons, a new car.
Then, last year, just when she thought she had enough for three tickets, Balu had started talking about buying a place of their own. They had sat in front of the bank manager, a man they’d never met, and given him their pay stubs, income tax statements and other scraps of paper that proved they were capable of repaying a loan. Then they had talked about interest rates and other matters and signed more pieces of paper. As if in a dream, they had driven around the city looking at homes, alarmed at the difference between the prices and what they could afford. Yet, miraculously, they had found one. Several blocks away from the small house they had rented from the Singhs for so many years, this one was even smaller, with a handkerchief-sized yard, but it was theirs—theirs in a way the ancestral Bhat home or even Leela’s father’s house could never be. They had not inherited it; they had bought it themselves. With her typical generosity, Bibi-ji had insisted they take with them all the furniture that was in their old home, and then sent another truckload of tables and bookshelves and yet another couch over.
The thought of Bibi-ji filled Leela with guilt. After moving into their new home she had held a housewarm-ing party—the last time she had seen Bibi-ji in several months. The children had left home and headed off in different directions—Jasbeer was somewhere in India and Preethi had flown to Toronto—so the young people had not provided an excuse to meet. Once or twice Bibi-ji phoned Leela to worry aloud about Jasbeer. He had not got in touch with his parents in New Delhi. And in the four years since he had left for the school in Bhinder, he had written in his letters to Bibi-ji only of wars and causes but nothing about the school or his studies. So vague were his letters that Bibi-ji had begun to wonder whether he was still at the school, and when she heard from Nimmo that he had not visited them even once in those four years, her nebulous uneasiness solidified into a certainty that her foster son was up to no good.
“Leela, what would you do if you woke up and discovered that Arjun was involved with religious extremists and guerrilla fighters in a country far away?” she had asked.
“I don’t know, Bibi-ji. I really don’t.” Leela silently thanked her gods that her children had not given her and Balu any real cause for concern.
It was May before she phoned Bibi-ji, who was by then busy with her own preparations to leave for India.
“But it is the middle of summer—why are you going now?” Leela asked. “Why not December, like you always do?”
“This June is the hundredth anniversary celebration of the martyrdom of Guru Arjun Dev. I want to be there then. It is an auspicious time. And I have to ask forgiveness for many sins.” Bibi-ji would go despite the heat, despite the crowds, so that she could do penance for having taken a woman’s son, promising to take care of him and then losing him. She would go down on her arthritic knees in the Harimandir Sahib, and she would wash the temple’s vast marble floors. She would roll out five hundred rotis in the kitchens. She would clean the shoes left at the temple doors by the thousands of pilgrims. “And on our way back, we will visit Nimmo and Satpal and beg their forgiveness for losing their son instead of taking care of him as we promised we would do.”
Hearing the weariness in Bibi-ji’s voice, Leela offered, “Bibi-ji, why don’t you come over for lunch before you leave? I’ll make you your favourite masala dosais.”
“I have much to do before I leave,” Bibi-ji said. “The day after I return, Leela, you can feed Pa-ji and me those delicious dosais. Make sure you have plenty available, hanh? Now, what can I bring back for you from India? Do you want me to take anything to mail to your relatives there?”
“No, Bibi-ji, don’t bother. Next year we are thinking of going ourselves.”
“You have been saying that every year, my dear. Next year is a long way off. But if you remember anything you want, phone, you hear me? I am leaving on the twenty-ninth of May, so there is still time.”
A car slowed down beside Leela. The driver, a woman with a glossy swing of auburn hair and bright green eyes, leaned out the window and said, “Excuse me.”
Leela paused and smiled at the woman. “Yes?”
“I seem to be lost. I’m looking for this address”—the woman held out a slip of paper and a street map—“I wonder if you could help me.”
And Leela provided the directions: left at the street corner, drive two blocks, look for … After the woman had driven away, she remained standing near the curb. She
felt idiotically pleased. A stranger had stopped her, Leela Bhat, originally from Bangalore, India, for directions. She had taken the woman’s map from her hands and without hesitating for even a moment had traced the route for her with a red pen. And in the woman’s eyes she had seen, not an awareness of her alienness, but a recognition of one who belonged, one who needed no maps to find her way.
By the time she reached her home, she was smiling broadly. She stood for a few moments at the gate and savoured the sight of the house—the sloping roof with cedar shingles, the large windows on either side of the wide chocolate-brown door, the shiny brass knocker on the door. With a swing to her step she walked up the path, inserted the key in the door and let herself in.
She told Balu about the incident at the dinner table as she served him a ladle full of gojju made from raw mangoes. “For a change,” she said, vigorously squeezing the rice and gojju in her own plate into a gruel, adding more of one or the other until she had the right consistency, “I was the one who belonged, and the gori woman was the stranger.” She laughed like a girl. “And I want to go to India next year. Can we manage that? It has been too long.”
“We’ll see.” Balu reached across to pat her hand. “God willing, and if our finances allow it, next summer we’ll go home and eat ripe mangoes instead of these green ones.”
TWENTY-TWO
GOLDEN TEMPLE
Amritsar
May 31-June 3, 1984
The journey to Amritsar was long but uneventful. After resting a day in a small hotel in New Delhi, Bibi-ji and Pa-ji caught the train to Amritsar, arriving at seven o’clock in the evening. Satpal’s sister Manpreet and her husband, Balraj, met them at the station. They would spend the day together before moving to the guest house in the Golden Temple complex. Manpreet was upset by their decision to stay at a guest house.
“When we are here, why do you need to stay there?” she demanded in a hurt voice. “Besides, I’ve heard rumours of trouble. They say that Sant Bhindranwale is holed up in the temple complex with his followers and the government is out to get him. I’ve heard they have been stockpiling arms in there for months—in various buildings, even in underground storage rooms. It is not very safe. I am telling you, Pa-ji, better you stay here at home with us.”
Pa-ji had heard of the deeply conservative preacher named Bhindranwale, whose pungent diatribes against the government of India were earning him an ever growing following among the Sikhs. He had heard stories that it was Indira Gandhi who had promoted Bhindranwale for political reasons and now he had fallen into disfavour with her. But he could not really believe that a village preacher, however charismatic, could have the power to create the kind of violence that Manpreet seemed to be hinting at, and so he brushed her fears away. “How can your home be safer than a place of God, sister? We will be all right, don’t worry. If things look bad we can always phone, and you can come and pick us up.”
“It isn’t that easy,” Balraj warned. “In this country, a breeze can change into a storm before you end a sneeze! You might not have time to phone. Besides, if there is a curfew we will not be able to come and get you. Manpreet is right. The temple is an arsenal and the situation is very unstable. You really should stay with us for a few days and then …”
Bibi-ji shook her head. There was always something going on in this city, in this contradictory country—agitations, festivals, processions, celebrations, explosions—it was a part of the daily, occasionally hazardous, business of living here. Religion and politics were always causing some conflagaration or other. It had never affected them on previous trips, and she didn’t think it would this time either.
But the following afternoon, on the way to the temple, Bibi-ji wondered about their decision to stay there. The evening before, driving through the city from the station to Manpreet’s home, what she and Pa-ji had failed to notice in the dark were the soldiers in the streets. Now she spotted them everywhere, standing in clusters, guns drooping from their shoulders, their faces sharp with suspicion. She saw a vehicle being stopped by two soldiers and the passengers being pulled out roughly. And a little later, as they approached their destination, she saw Jeeps, manned by heavily armed policemen, blocking some of the narrow gullies that radiated outwards from the walls of the Golden Temple. This was where she loved to shop for bargains whenever she came to Amritsar, but the market, which should have been full of pilgrims, appeared empty. Instead, soldiers leaned against the doorways, and Bibi-ji glimpsed them on the flat rooftops that abutted or overlooked the walled temple complex. Her unease grew, but she said nothing.
“Did you see that?” Pa-ji remarked, as if reading her thoughts. “It looks like a war zone!”
“It is not we who are at war,” Balraj remarked bitterly. Overriding their protests, he had accompanied them to the temple guest house. “It is our government, headed by the Pandit’s daughter, Indira Gandhi, who is at war with us!”
They fell silent. After what seemed an inordinately long drive, which involved reversing several times to avoid roadblocks, they arrived at the temple gates. Here too soldiers stood around in small groups, carrying guns as casually as cricket bats, a sight that offered a disturbing contrast to the churn of colourfully dressed pilgrims. Bibi-ji shivered slightly, feeling deeply unnerved by the juxtaposition of the carnival atmosphere within the temple gates and the grim-eyed soldiers loitering just outside. From where she stood, she could see the buildings of the complex surrounding the central shrine, the Harimandir Sahib, its milk-white marble walls suffused with the light of day. Great carved doors opened on its four sides, she knew, so that men and women of all castes might enter. A memory came to Bibi-ji of an afternoon many decades ago when, as a young woman, just married, she had arrived in Amritsar. Standing in the living room of Mrs. Hardy, her English teacher, she had been looking out at the golden dome that beckoned in the distance.
The elderly lady had come up to the window and remarked, “Isn’t that beautiful?”
“Yes, Mrs. Hardy, it is,” Bibi-ji had said shyly, still in awe of this gori woman with her clear blue eyes, who taught her the English language and was fluent in Hindi and Punjabi as well.
“My late husband used to love going there, you know. He was an archaeologist, and the temples in this country fascinated him. He told me that the Harimandir Sahib is built on a level lower than the surrounding land. Did you know that?”
“Yes,” Bibi-ji had nodded. When she visited it with Pa-ji’s relatives on Sunday mornings, she always climbed down a flight of steps to the level of the water in the lake before crossing the walkway to enter the temple.
“But do you know why that is so?”
“No, Mrs. Hardy,” Bibi-ji had replied. She had always been so awestruck by the temple, by the sense that she was in the holiest place in the Sikh world, that she had never questioned the structure of it.
“It is symbolic of your faith, in which everyone is equal. Caste or class does not matter. Every caste is required to go down a step in order to enter the house of God. I think that is a beautiful lesson in humility. Don’t you?”
A lesson that had obviously been forgotten, Bibi-ji thought wryly, in this battle between prime minister and preacher.
She and Pa-ji were taken to a bare room in one of the three guest houses within the temple complex—their home for the next few days. They stretched out on hard mattresses on the narrow cots, the only pieces of furniture in the room other than a stiff-backed chair and a table that swayed uncertainly on its legs. Bibi-ji, who had grown used to the comforts of her Hollywood-style bedroom in distant Vancouver, tried not to mind the sparse-ness of the furnishings, the darkness or the mosquitoes that managed to find her plump body even through the shroud of netting draped over the bed. To live in the hermit-like simplicity of this room, she lectured herself sternly as she turned again on the mattress, trying to adjust her bulk to its narrowness, was part of her worship. She listened to the sly scuttle of cockroaches across the bare floors, held her breath when she ent
ered the bathroom, which had a faint smell of sewage overlaid with that of phenol solution, and reminded herself that here she was not Bibi-ji, wife of the wealthy Sikh gentleman Khushwant Singh alias Pa-ji, of 212 East 56th, Vancouver, but a humble petitioner in the court of the Almighty, the Great Guru, the One Up There.
A tide of delayed jet lag and travel exhaustion knocked them both into a deep, dreamless sleep that lasted the entire day. They slept unaware through the citywide curfew imposed at nine o’clock that night, and didn’t notice the power supply had been cut off until Bibi-ji sat up suddenly, wide awake, bathed in sweat, her throat parched, wondering why the fan was not operating. It was not yet dawn and Pa-ji was still asleep, sprawled across his cot. His white hair lay unbound about his wide, still-muscled back, his breath whistled out of his nostrils and his arm hung over the side of the bed, outside the mosquito netting. His wrist was red with bites. Bibi-ji gently lifted the arm and put it back inside the netting. She looked with deep love at the man she had stolen from her sister so long ago. He had given her everything, forgiven all her foolish obstinacies, indulged her whims even when he had misgivings about them. When she had telephoned him from Delhi to tell him she wanted to bring Jasbeer back with her to Vancouver, he had first scolded her: “It might not be good for the child. You must think carefully about this, my Bebby. It is a human life for which you are assuming responsibility, not a doll or a pet. Do you understand that?”
Yes, Bibi-ji had said, impatient with his lecturing, certain of the rightness of her good deed, yes, I know. But she had not known, not really. She had treated Jasbeer just as she would a toy or a pet, indulging his whims, ignoring his faults. And while she had played at being a mother, the boy had drifted far away from her.
Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? Page 24