by Anubha Mehta
Why is it so hot today? Baba said that it is going to be the hottest and driest summer afternoon in Peshawar. My eyes are full of loose gravel from our courtyard, which blew in with bunches of burnt leaves after dancing round and round in a furious circle. Even before the morning milkman had come, Ma unfurled the musk-scented grass curtains in our open veranda to keep the house cool. Baba said it was to prepare for the fury of the sun as it rose. I was not allowed to play hopscotch with Ashu and Rupa. “Make sure you three sisters don’t go out in the heat,” Baba had said before leaving for his headmaster’s job at our school.
I don’t really mind not playing with them anymore, as these two are getting more irritating by the day. They are always following me around and asking me questions that I don’t want to answer. I will ask Baba tonight if I can sleep in a separate room now that I am big and all.
Today, Ma also decided to stay home instead of going to teach her music class at our school. But that just meant that I had to help her in the kitchen, knead dough, boil rice, and then read to Ashu and help Rupa with her diction. By evening, as the wrath of the sun subsided, I grew restless. All I wanted to do was hit the right notes of the latest raga that Ma had taught me on her tanpura. I need the practise. Ever since Ma had scolded me for not being able to reach the last two high notes, I have wanted to do nothing else but practise under the banyan tree. Its branches spread like that of a protecting eagle, covering our whole courtyard with shade and life. A week ago, a pair of white doves laid eggs on its topmost branches. They have been nesting on this banyan for a year now. I recognize their flutter long before I see them. It is as if they are a part of my day. I’ve named them Om and Shanti. Their peaceful white sheen brings me luck, soothes my nerves, and gives me confidence before performing. My singing brings our neighbours and some of Baba and Ma’s friends to our courtyard. But there is another reason I want to sing. It brings him.
September 12, 1946
Something very special happened last evening. I will always remember it. Our courtyard was filled with spectators, more than usual. Baba says that it is because the cool eastern breeze entices everyone to follow the scent of my melodies.
Om and Shanti were perched on their highest branch to bless me with luck. I hit all the right notes, or so I read from Ma’s face. I sang into the night, from my selection of evening ragas to night ragas. It was so effortless, and I was in a frenzy to go on. Every time I started a new song, I felt my tongue gliding on a ribbon that lifted me high into the clouds. But then, just before dinner, the air became stuffy, and many people started moving out. I was happy to see that Sachin had stayed on. With a loud sparkling cry, the heavens burst open, sending sheets of happy tears down on the hot tin roofs that received them with gratitude. It was as if the burgeoning rain drops were beating in rhythm to my ragas. But Rupa, Ashu, and Ma started packing up to take shelter inside. I lifted my face to welcome the cold musty drops on my parched lips.
“Don’t just stand there, silly girl. Come here and help,” came Ma’s instructions. She handed me a stack of small hand towels to distribute to the few remaining guests to wipe themselves with. It was getting dark, so I picked up an earthen candle in the other hand. My hair was soaking, and my drenched kurta was sticking to my body like a glove.
As I reached Sachin, the distance between us was just a few inches of the length of the towel I held in my hand. I could feel his warm breath on my cheek. Sachin grabbed the other end of the towel and started pulling me closer to him. His hand touched mine. His voice was deep as a gravel pit and his scent intoxicating. “Thank you, Gayatri.”
Something ignited inside me. It was like I was aware of my body coming alive from a slumber. He reached out to shelter my candle from the falling droplets. We stood there in the rain, in the candlelight, soaked to our bones, mesmerized.
“Gaga, what are you doing?” An inquisitive Rupa broke our spell.
“Ohhh, nothing. Just handing out the towels.” I ran in to my room to get away. . Ma had laid out dinner.
“Gaga, go get changed,” she said without looking up. I was afraid she had seen us. When I came back, to my complete surprise, Sachin was seated at the table with Baba, Ma, and the girls, engrossed in a conversation.
Ma was saying, “So, tomorrow evening, come a little earlier to drop off our groceries, just before Gayatri starts her practise routine, and I will start with your first lesson….” My ears perked up. What was Ma doing? Had she just invited Sachin for a lesson? But I knew how strict Sachin’s father was about his free time. He was only allowed to come here after his daily chores at his father’s grocery store. Sachin’s father was our local grocery store owner. As a good neighbour, Sachin’s father sent Ma a daily supply of green vegetables, lentils, and fresh tea leaves.
“Yes, yes, I will ask for an earlier shift in the store from Papa so that I can arrive on time.” He could not contain his excitement. Neither could I. So Sachin was going to come to our house for music lessons every evening. How good could life get?
January 30, 1947
It has been only a few weeks since Sachin had started singing, but it seems that this is what he was born to do. When his deep voice hits the lowest note, or his passion climbs to the highest tempo, I clench my fists tightly, and dig my nails into my palms to avoid being completely sucked in by his sheer magnetism. Oh! How I love him!
Last week Ma asked us to sing together, and the crowds for our evening recital has now started swelling by the day. I overheard Baba tell Ma that he was getting worried about what, “…being unmarried and singing with a young lad” would do to my reputation. But I did not care. Nothing in the whole world could stop us from the time we spent in heaven, singing together. Our voices synchronize in perfect harmony, our thoughts align, and our souls unite. It is the greatest joy I have ever known. And I pray every night that this time will last forever.
Om and Shanti’s eggs hatched last week, and, although I did not see them much, I heard their flutter among the cheerful chirps of their chicks.
I never want anything to change, ever.
June 18, 1947
I spoke too soon. Change has come and jinxed our perfect life. Today was the most cursed day I have ever known. It has changed everything. It was a typical hot June evening until Baba came home after his monthly neighbourhood committee meeting. My music practise had been cancelled as Ashu was running a fever. Ma was oiling my hair when Baba walked in with a worried look. Ma followed him, and they closed the bedroom door behind them. We waited for them to come out for dinner—they didn’t—and then waited for them after dinner. Just before bed, the door finally opened and both Ma and Baba came out looking as white as ghosts. We huddled around them, and then Baba gave us the news. His words stayed in my ears for a long time. “There is nothing in life that stays constant, and there is nothing in life that I like more than my homeland and this life with all of you.” His voice cracked up and I knew something serious was coming. Baba never spoke like this. Rupa instinctively hugged him, and he held out his hand for Ashu and me. What he told us next changed our life forever.
“The time has come for India to be partitioned into the two sovereign countries of India and Pakistan. Now Ma took over, “We have never stressed about our religion before. We were born in the land of Pathans, and we belong here. However, for the first time, for the sake of our safety, we have to remember that we are Hindus living in a Muslim hamlet. Even though this is the only home we know, we have to leave it now and go where the rest of the Hindus live.”
“But why Ma?” Rupa cried.
“How can we not be safe in our own home?” Ashu asked. Instead of answering, she hugged them both tightly.
I did not want to show my weakness, as Ma had taught me, but today I could not stop my tears. I let them flow. Rupa and Ashu clung to me for support, but I could not offer them any.
We have to travel east of the Indus River, all the way to Delhi, where Baba has a
n old school friend, Ahmed Bilal. Baba assured us that this would only be temporary, only until things quieten down. Then we could return home.
“We have to move before the carnage and painful displacement begins for millions of families like ours. It is inevitable. We leave the day after tomorrow at sunrise,” Baba decided.
Why is this happening? Why does it matter which God we pray to? What is so important that we have to abandon the only life we have ever known? The only love I have ever known? Will I ever see Sachin again?
July 30, 1947
If it were not for my parents, I would have rather died than leave my home. This past week has been a daze. I am living in another person’s body. My body and soul are left behind with my tanpura under the banyan tree, under the nest of Om and Shanti, and with Sachin.
On that last dark night, I snuck out to see Sachin for the last time. I knew he would be in his room at the back, probably studying under an oil lamp, absolutely clueless about how our lives have been torn apart. I threw some soft pebbles at his window, and, when no one came to see, I slid a note between the cracks of his windowsill. In my note, I told him that we were leaving, that I did not want to be apart from him, and that he should come with us. Then I ran back to my house, slipped under the cold bedsheets and, with each passing hour that Sachin did not come, wept some more.
At the crack of dawn, exactly two days from the evil night that Baba brought the terrible news, we tiptoed out of our courtyard, bolted the main door with an enormous iron lock, and, with our entire life packed in shabby sling bags, boarded a train from Peshawar to eventually reach Delhi.
August 10, 1947
I have never seen such grandeur as in Delhi’s Chandni Chowk. Not in Peshawar, not anywhere. But then, we had never been outside of Peshawar. Such broad shopping areas, with colourful stalls of flower vendors, photographers on the sidewalks, and a magnificent clock tower on one end of our street. Ashu and Rupa’s eyes widened at the candy stalls, vivid paper kites, and multi-coloured glass bangles. Our mouths watered at the sweet smells of roasted pistachios and carrot cakes at the roadside sweet shops. But what really caught my imagination was a very special hospital, just a few blocks away. It is a bird’s hospital. Baba said it is one of its kind in the whole country. They treat all kinds of birds here: pigeons, parrots, sparrows and even peacocks. Nervously, I asked Baba if they also treat white doves, and he said “yes.”
My hopes have risen. There is a possibility that Om and Shanti will pine for me and fall ill, and then they will fly here to the hospital where I will find them, forever. Maybe Sachin will follow too. My heart is full of hope and doubt. Why did Sachin not come to meet me in my last moments in Peshawar? Did he not care? Or did he not get my note? Was he looking for me now? I will never know. No one knew where we were. Unless Baba had told the neighbours. Maybe there was a little hope after all. Hope was all I had for now.
Bilal Uncle’s tiny apartment was in a rundown building in a crowded, narrow street. As soon as he opened the door, we immediately recognized a painful and familiar sight. His bags were packed, and his eyes were heavy.
“My wife and I are going to our ancestral town of Karachi, leaving our home in your hands. One day soon we shall return. Till then, my friend, you are most welcome to stay and call our home your home.” Within an hour, he and his teary-eyed wife were gone.
August 12, 1947
Life is different here. Life is different everywhere. The whole country is engulfed in flames. The carnage that Baba had anticipated has begun. Baba’s radio blasts Gandhi, Nehru, and Jinnah’s speeches. I hear the word “freedom” several times among the news of overloaded trains of refugees from either side trying to cross over to their side, dodging the violence and the looting. Millions have succumbed, families have been displaced, children orphaned. Once, on a very bad frequency, I thought I heard “Peshawar,” and I stopped in my tracks to pick up any word that followed. A reporter was talking about villagers filling their iron rods with gunpowder to explode in the face of the rioters. I prayed every night for them, for Sachin, and for our good fortune that we are all here together safe, with the hope that I will see Sachin again.
Our first few weeks in Chandni Chowk were spent getting our bearings. We needed to be frugal with the limited funds that Baba had been able to take with him from Peshawar.
“Tomorrow I shall follow up on all the calls that I have made. At this point I will take any job that comes first, even if I have to wait tables.”
“Didn’t that kind man at the wholesale cloth house offer you part time hours? Why don’t you start with him first? I will see if I can get a part time job too,” Ma pitched in.
“No, you will not look for a job outside. You look after the house and the girls and be my strength. While I am alive and able, there is no need for the women of my family to work.”
I did not want to hear any more. This was a very different exchange from the joking carefree conversations that Baba and Ma had in Peshawar. Why did those days have to end?
August 14, 1947
Death visited today, but decided not to stay.
Just as we were starting to succumb to the security of a safe routine, catastrophe struck. Everything was fine until Baba had an urge to eat almond rice pudding. Oh, Baba and his sweet tooth!
“Gaga, why don’t you run down to the sweets shop and get five portions?”
“What are we celebrating, Papa?” asked Rupa.
“Just life, my dearest, just life.”
But Ma stopped me and scolded Baba: “What are you doing? This is not Peshawar you know, where you can send the girl alone. Wait, I am coming with you.”
Ma followed me out along with Ashu and Rupa, latching the main door from the outside.
The trip to the sweets shop was in a more congested part and took longer than expected. Not knowing our way around, we were caught in bottlenecks, and at one point we had to walk in a single file to avoid open drains and live wires hanging down from electric poles. Ma bought five mud containers filled with the rice pudding, one for each of us. Then we headed back. As we approached our narrow lane, I could have sworn that it looked more crowded than when we had left an hour ago. There was a policeman with a gun on his hip and a stick in his hand, standing at the entrance. Something was not right.
“Are you the woman of house number 1303?” he asked.
“Eh, yes I am.” I could hear the nervousness in Ma’s voice.
“Come with me.”
We all followed him upstairs. Our front door was ajar and the floor was covered with glass splinters from a smashed window. Then I saw the rest.
Baba was lying on a stretcher surrounded by two paramedics who were bandaging his open wounds. His eyes were closed, and he was bleeding from his head through the stained dressing. His white clothes were soiled red with blood. The house was ransacked, and our two suitcases with their measly belongings were gone.
I felt faint. Ma collapsed near Baba’s stretcher. The girls started sobbing uncontrollably. Someone brought a glass of water for each of us. That helped. Finding a little of my voice, I asked one of the paramedics what had happened.
“Your father is not regaining consciousness, although we have found his pulse. He has suffered multiple blows to his head, and it is a miracle that he is alive.”
The policeman now stepped forward. “This is the work of some neighbourhood goons who mistook this house as belonging to the Muslim family that lived here. You probably forgot to change the name plate on your front door, and the goons mistook you for Muslims. Now that the whole country is engulfed in Hindu-Muslim riots, all such houses are being targeted.”
A surge of hatred and anger rose from my stomach and gripped my head. Such small people. For such a petty thing as a name plate, they attacked my Baba. What kind of animals are these people?
Baba was carried away on a stretcher in a waiting ambulance. Ma
went with him too. Ashu, Rupa, and I have been left alone in this sinful place.
August 16, 1947
For once, I do not like having the freedom to lord it over my sisters. I am in charge, but I realize that this is no freedom at all. It is a responsibility. With Ma and Baba gone, I have to manage the house, clean, cook, and feed my sisters.
Earlier, I checked in Ma’s small canister where she keeps her loose change for groceries. It had only a few annas left. I took the change for our next meal and was latching up the lid when something gleamed from under her torn handkerchief. I gently pulled it out and gasped. There, below a tattered holy book, were two gold bracelets. I have never seen such beautiful engraving before. Their clasps are in the shape of peacock heads, and they are filled with meenakari work. I remember seeing them on Ma’s wrists at a neighbourhood wedding. The gold was embedded with jewels from the peacock’s tail: emerald, ruby, copper, amethyst, and jade. My fingers instinctively glided over the intricate embossment. It is the most beautiful piece of jewellery I have ever touched. I held the bracelets in my hands for a long time. They reminded me of better days and happiness. Then I tucked the peacock bracelets back under her handkerchief and looked at the annas again. What can I get with them? Tomorrow morning, I will go down to the market and find out.
August 18, 1947
It must have been midday when I woke up to someone knocking on the front door. Without Ma and Baba, there was no one to wake us up on time. I was almost awake when I opened the door, but it felt like a dream. It was Ma. She was smiling, tired but relieved. Rupa and Ashu were already pulling her in.
“Baba is conscious. He is coming home soon.” We hugged her for a long time.
Then Ma took me aside and said, “Baba will not be able to get up from the bed, Gaga. He is paralyzed on the left side. God help us.” With Rupa and Ashu not around, Ma let herself go, one tear after another. Ma always relied on me to hold her, to understand her, and to support her. Sometimes I feel it is unfair, but, in times like this, my feelings do not matter. If Baba is disabled, then I have to help Ma pick up the pieces. And for my family, I can do anything.