by Keya Ghosh
‘Keep him safe,’ said my brother. ‘If anyone finds him, we are all dead.’
‘Who is he?’ I asked.
‘The son of a bastard,’ said my brother. ‘An important man.’
They left me alone with Aman in a safe house that was miles within a forest. It was the dead of winter, and we were all alone. Even I didn’t dare to leave the house. A person could get lost in a matter of minutes and freeze to death in an hour.
I waited till they were long gone. I untied him and removed the blindfold. He croaked, ‘Thank you.’ When he tried to get to his feet, he fell over. I locked the door carefully and looked at this boy of my age, who lay there trying to smile.
Diya
The first time I ever saw Aman he was reading a book while the world around him was going crazy. The college cricket team was four runs away from beating our long-standing rivals, KC College. His friends were half laughing, half exasperated with him. With two runs to go, they took his book and flung it out into the crowd. As the winning ball touched the boundary, the crowd went mad. He had to scramble through screaming, jumping, dancing people, searching for his book.
When he went past me, I tapped him on the shoulder. ‘Here,’ I said, handing him the book I had rescued from between the dancing feet. He took it and said something. I couldn’t hear it. The screaming of the crowd wiped away all the words between us. Shrugging, he took my hand and kissed it. Then he walked away.
I began to notice him around college. He always had a gang of friends with him. While they fooled around, passed remarks and shared jokes, he always had his head in a book. They teased him about it all the time, calling him ‘Masterji’, ‘Kaviraj’ and ‘nerd’. He would just look up and smile and go back to his reading. He only ever paid attention when someone took his book away. From time to time, his friends would lose patience with him and there would be a passing match in the canteen with Aman’s book.
He was surprisingly popular. Everyone seemed to know him, calling out to him as he passed by. I watched him quietly, trying to push back the memory that edged into my mind each time I saw him—a young boy casually taking my hand and kissing it in thanks.
I was alone in the canteen one day, drinking a cup of coffee, when he stopped in front of me. ‘I see you’re a reader as well,’ he said, looking down at the book I had in front of me.
‘Not like you,’ I said shyly. ‘That must have been a really interesting book if it kept you from watching the match.’
He looked down at me and smiled. ‘Yes, it was,’ he said. ‘Here. Why don’t you try reading it.’ He dug around in his bag and handed over a battered book. It was Palgrave’s Golden Treasury of Poetry, the second-year English text.
I laughed. ‘A textbook?’
‘That doesn’t make the poetry any less beautiful,’ he said.
He was right. His favourite poems were underlined in pencil. When I handed the book back to him, I had underlined mine.
Kabir
I knew from the beginning that my brother was likely to kill Aman. I knew it would be stupid to like him. But try being rude to a guy who says ‘thank you’ for the burnt rotis and tasteless dal you shove through the door. Who wishes you good morning politely and does not seem to blame you in the least for what is happening to him. I expected him to shout and curse and abuse me and his fate. But all he did was smile and say, ‘Thank you.’
The only thing that got a protest out of him was the tea. On the third morning, he put down the cup after taking one sip. ‘This is really bad tea,’ he said. ‘Do you think I could make it?’
I hesitated.
‘I’m not going to attack you or try to escape. I don’t believe in violence. And there isn’t anywhere to go, is there?’
I led him to the kitchen. The tea he made was strong and flavoured with ginger. Hindustani chai, not Kashmiri. We sat on the bench in the kitchen and sipped it. Ten minutes later, we were hotly arguing about Hindi film music.
‘Kishore Kumar,’ he said firmly. ‘Mohammed Rafi. S.D. Burman.’
‘They sang fifty years ago! Sonu Nigam. Arijit Singh. Atif Aslam.’
‘But listen to the songs. Listen to the lyrics.’ He could quote the lyrics by heart. ‘When the film industry started out, they got the poets to write their lyrics. Sahir Ludhianvi, Shakeel Badayuni, Kaifi Azmi—they were real poets. And those songs are poetry set to music. That is what lyrics should be. Poetry set to music.’
He smiled shyly at me and then quoted a few lines.
What songs will you carry on your lips?
Songs of love,
Soft on the lips you kiss with.
Song of protest,
Loud on the lips you scream with.
What songs will you leave in the world,
For other lips to carry?
Everything whispers to silence.
Only the songs remain.
Aman whispered the words and I was fascinated. ‘Who wrote that?’ I asked.
‘Me,’ said Aman.
Diya
I was new in college. All of us freshers sneaked around, trying our best not to get noticed. Despite all the lectures and the rules forbidding ragging, the seniors still stopped us to make us sing and dance and do silly dares. I was petrified of being ragged, and kept my head down in the corridors.
Then my luck ran out. One day, a group of seniors surrounded me in a corridor and demanded that I sing. I stood there, gazing blankly at them, heart beating fast.
‘Come on,’ said a boy with wild hair standing up on end. ‘Even if you can’t sing, you have to. It’s a fresher tax. Lagaan.’
I suppose they expected some Hindi film song. But I had trained as a classical singer from the time I was six years old. I put my head down, looked fixedly at my feet, and sang a thumri. When I finished, there was silence. I peeped up at them. They were all staring at me. Then the boy with wild hair jumped up. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We have to take you to the auditorium.’
The others got up as well. ‘Yeah. Great idea.’
They hurried me along the corridor. I went with them, not knowing what they were going to ask me to do next.
When we got to the auditorium, it was jam-packed with students. A girl was on stage, singing. She was off-key, and the audience began to howl in protest. My heart sank. I was going to be ragged in front of everyone. I spotted Aman on stage. I was going to be ragged in front of him. I wanted to turn and run, but the seniors were on either side of me.
They began to shove their way through the crowd in the aisle. They got to the front and yelled at Aman, ‘Hey. We’ve got a good one for you.’
The boy with wild hair turned to me and said, ‘Get up on stage and sing.’
I found my voice. ‘I won’t get on that stage,’ I said. ‘I’ll tell the principal you’re ragging me!’ They looked astonished. Then they burst out laughing.
‘We’re not ragging you,’ said one of the boys. ‘We’re auditioning you. These are the auditions for the college band.’
‘No, no!’ I said. ‘I can’t! I can’t.’ How could I explain to them that I could never sing in public? My father would never allow it.
‘Can’t sing?’ the wild-haired boy laughed. ‘We just heard you. Get up there.’
I climbed the stairs feeling like I was going to be sick. Aman looked surprised to see me. He adjusted the height of the mike.
‘Go on,’ he said.
The lights were blinding. The hall seemed a huge dark hole from up there. I was so scared that I closed my eyes. Then I began to sing.
There was a tremor in my voice. Somewhere along the song, a soft guitar joined me. Then another voice. A male voice. The voice steadied me. It sang with me, around me. It ran counterpoint to the harmony I was following. It lifted my voice up, and we both soared. As I felt my voice grow strong and confident, I opened my eyes. It was Aman.
Then I understood why everyone loved him. He was the lead singer with the college band. And he was really good. He always had his head stuck
in a poetry book because he was trying to write his own lyrics and was fascinated with how poetry was constructed.
We sang together. Our voices joined and lifted, and the moment became magic.
How could I not fall in love?
Kabir
The second night we were out there, alone together, it began to snow. We woke up to a world that had been remade without colour. There was whiteness wherever you looked, and the sun turned everything to crystals. It was so still you could hear the trees breathing. It didn’t stop for five days. There was 4 feet of snow on the ground, and we were completely cut off. No one could get through to us. It was like someone had erased the world around us.
So, we drank tea and we talked. How we talked! About love. About death. About good and evil, and why we both hated the old men who ruled our country.
I wanted to know about college. About a normal life. About how teenagers in India lived their ordinary, wonderful lives. College seemed a wonderful world of fun and hanging out. My ideas of it were drawn from Hindi films where there was never a book in sight and everyone dressed like models and did a lot of singing. He laughed when I painted this picture and said there wasn’t as much singing. Even without that and with the addition of exams, it still sounded awesome to me. Mostly, I guess, because I would never make it there.
I asked a million questions. I made him describe the building, the students, the teachers. Festivals. Hanging out at the canteen. Friends. Games. The more he told me, the more I longed for his life. But I knew I could never fit in. I didn’t even know what a cappuccino was. Aman saw my hunger, and he began to teach me.
There we were, in the middle of nowhere. A terrorist learning to be a gentleman from his hostage.
Aman would lay an imaginary table, and we would eat imaginary things with imaginary cutlery. He would describe the meal. ‘This is an official dinner for the new superintendent of police. The menu has been printed on little cards and it’s right there in front of you. We’re going to begin with a prawn cocktail.’
He had already taught me what a cocktail was. But this was new. ‘We’re going to drink prawns?!’
‘No. A prawn cocktail isn’t a drink. It’s a salad with prawns in it. You use the little fork to eat it.’
What sumptuous meals we had! I dined with the local MLA. With the lady Governor. I ate in five-star hotels, at fancy restaurants and at government guest houses. We even did a meal at the ambassador’s residence in Moscow. Aman explained what caviar was. ‘Fish eggs. The Russians love them. We got them served on boiled eggs. They were offended that I wouldn’t touch mine.’
We dressed up for each dinner. With a piece of string, Aman would demonstrate how to fasten a tie. My shawl would become a coat. An achkan. An overcoat with a fur collar that he’d once worn on a short trip to Moscow in the winter.
We hung out at his college. He described all his friends as they joined us. We sat in his class and listened to his professors. He taught me fads, slang, what was in and what was old and dead.
I borrowed his life, and he let me. He made me a gift of it and just watched me with those sad eyes of his as I tried it on for size.
Amanbhai. I don’t know when it slipped out of my mouth. But it seemed so correct, it was what I called him after that. We were unlikely brothers.
Then one day, he told me about her.
‘So, do you have a girlfriend?’ I couldn’t resist asking. Aman was silent for a long time. Then his eyes lit up in a slow smile.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And she has me.’
‘What is she like?’
He took some time to reply. ‘The first time I saw her, people were going crazy around her—shouting, jumping, dancing. And she was standing still, a smile on her face. That’s what she is, really. Still. Calm. A small, peaceful space where the world vanishes and I can just stop and rest.’ His love for her was dancing in his voice. ‘She doesn’t talk much. But when she sings. Ah. It’s like she’s breathing in air and breathing out light. It is so beautiful.’
I was listening, entranced. ‘Is she beautiful?’
‘Yes. Very beautiful. But when you really love someone, it doesn’t matter what they look like. It’s them that you love. She’s beautiful inside and outside.’ He smiled and softly said the words of one of his poems.
What is God?
A paltry thing.
When she laughs
He slips from my mind
And is gone.
I was jealous. I too wanted a love like that. A girl whose laughter shook everything, even God, from my mind.
Diya
I wanted to sing with Aman again. I wanted so much to share the flow that we had found together. But first, I had to ask my father for permission to sing. For three long days, I just couldn’t work up the courage. Then, I told myself, what was the use of asking a question to which I already knew the answer?
It was difficult getting Aman on his own. He was always surrounded by friends, but I knew I had to speak to him before rehearsal began. I finally walked up to him as he sat reading under a tree. He looked up at me and smiled. ‘It’s the girl with the voice like sunshine.’
‘I can’t sing,’ I said, blurting out everything I wanted to say in one nervous rush. ‘I mean, I won’t be allowed to. I can’t be part of the band. I can’t come for rehearsals. My father won’t allow me. I’m sorry.’
Aman kept looking up at me. ‘Do you like singing?’
‘Of course,’ I said.
‘Do you sing for your father or yourself?’
‘For myself. I love it. It makes me happy.’
‘Don’t give up on something you love so easily.’ He was looking at me as he said it. ‘Happiness is not so easy to find.’
I thought about that for a long time. With his words, it came home to me that my life was small and poor. There had been so little happiness in it. There had been plenty of duty. My mother had taught me that, because that was all that she had. No love. No happiness. Do your duty and watch life pass by.
Even the music I loved was given to me because my father thought classical music lessons would make me better marriage material. Instead, they became the one thing that held my hand and led me through my days. I couldn’t let go.
Eventually, after thinking and worrying about it for hours, I invented an extra class that took place after college. When I walked through the door for the first rehearsal, Aman smiled at me. Looked up and smiled. Then it hit me—there was one more thing that gave me happiness. Him.
Kabir
Just before my brother was taken away, I had started to discover girls. Well, this one girl. She was a neighbour, and two years older than me. But she had this way of giggling that sounded so friendly and so happy. I would watch her going off to school with her sister. I would make sure to be busy outside when she came back. I just watched, and when she looked at me, I would look the other way. It made her giggle. And listening to her laughter made me happy.
Then, our world changed. She stopped me once, after my brother had been taken by the army. She started to say how sorry she was, but I just walked away and left her standing there.
After I joined my brother, I had barely seen a girl. I mean, I had passed them on streets when we were in the city. But we were mostly hiding in one place or the other. And even those who hid us and sympathized with us hid their daughters before they let us into their homes.
I hadn’t spoken to a girl in years. I’d learnt many things. Firing a gun. Putting together crude petrol bombs. Strategies for killing. Strategies for staying alive. But girls? I’d learnt absolutely nothing about them. I didn’t even know what I’d say if I got a chance to talk to one. The only thing I could talk about was aazadi.
Aman didn’t find it funny when I said that. He looked sad. ‘You’re eighteen. This is not the life you should be living. At this age you shouldn’t be knowing how to patch an exit wound. Or how to kill a man. You should be worrying about girls. And pimples. Crap like that.’
‘I do worry about girls,’ I said. ‘I worry that I know nothing about them. And that I’m never going to.’
‘A relationship between a girl and a boy is the most beautiful thing. You have a right to discover it. With this life you never will, Afzal.’
‘I will find myself a girlfriend!’
‘Where? Running from safe house to safe house? When you go to town to throw bombs? This is not the life you should be living.’
‘I have chosen it,’ I said. ‘I’m a patriot. A freedom fighter.’
‘Whose freedom are you fighting for by giving away your own?’
‘This is my choice!’ I said.
‘Is it really?’ he asked softly.
‘Yes. I choose to fight for aazadi. With aazadi, a new life will begin for my people. We will no longer be under the tyranny of those who despise us. Who kill us!’
‘Are these your words? Are these truly your words?’
‘Yes. I have seen the injustice myself. I have seen my brother suffer. All Kashmiris are my brothers. I want justice. I want freedom. I will die for it!’ My voice faltered and stopped. I realized these were my brother’s words. His beliefs, not mine. What did I really want?
And the answer slid into my mind. A cup of coffee. Just a simple cup of coffee. Because to be sitting in a cafe drinking a cup of coffee was a freedom that I had never known. A personal freedom. And it beckoned me more strongly than the freedom my brother talked of. One simple cup of coffee. And maybe someone across the table smiling at me as I sipped it.
Even as I thought it, I knew it could never be. I was paying a debt to my brother by handing my life to him. But it would never balance things out. The debt was too big and made up of too much pain. I could never leave.
Diya
Music. And Aman’s smile. Two little pieces of stolen happiness that lit up my days. I loved the rehearsals. They were a light in my life. But Aman insisted I was the light. I was the sunshine. That’s what he used to call me: ‘sunshine’. He said that when I stopped singing, the sun went behind clouds and the day became dark.