by Keya Ghosh
‘You must become the change you want to see in the world,’ said Aman. ‘You want a more peaceful world? Then you stop being a terrorist.’
‘If I stop, will everyone else stop? Will the army no longer beat up people in the street? Will riots stop? How can one person change anything?’
‘All the change you can ever make is in one person. Yourself. You want change? Start with yourself. Put the gun down.’
In that instance, he meant it literally. We were outside in the cold. I had set up a tin can as a target and was practising my aim. With every shot, the birds rose into the sky, chirping away frantically.
‘And that will solve everything?’
‘As long as you have a gun in your hand, you are part of the problem.’
‘It’s not me!’ I said, hitting the can and making it skip through the snow. ‘I never started this. They forced me to take this path.’
‘No,’ said Aman. ‘It was your choice. You didn’t have to reply to hatred with hatred. If even one person chooses not to reply with violence, things will change.’
I laughed at him as I set up the target again. ‘Gandhi is dead,’ I said. ‘If he had lived, there would have been no place for him in this world.’
‘He is alive. They killed the man, not what he stood for. Otherwise why are we arguing about him? There is a place for him. The day there is no place for love and compassion in this world, the world will die.’
I kicked the can and looked around. The world looked pristinely white, as if it had been made anew. As if there were no darkness, no rottenness anywhere at all.
‘They held my brother. They tortured him. And he had done nothing. Someone has to pay!’ I said.
‘An eye for an eye can only make the whole world blind, Afzal,’ said Aman softly.
I couldn’t think of an answer to that one.
‘Look at you,’ he said, ‘stuck in the middle of nowhere. With a gun for company. Practising to kill. Can you really aim it at someone and kill them?’
‘If I have to. Yes.’ I aimed and shot. He had made me so mad, I missed.
Aman waited till the flat echoes of the shot had died. ‘No, you can’t,’ he said. ‘You are not a violent person. You cannot kill.’
‘I can!’ I said.
He smiled and shook his head. ‘One day, a moment will come when you will be asked to kill—and you won’t be able to. Then you will realize the truth about yourself.’
‘I know the truth about myself,’ I said. I held up the gun. ‘This is my truth. I will use it when I have to.’
‘On me?’ said Aman. ‘What if you had to use it on me?’ He walked up to me, grabbed the barrel and placed it on his chest.
I pushed him away.
‘You can’t shoot me because we’ve become friends. But think how every stranger is someone’s friend. Every stranger is a person like you. Who hopes. Who loves. Who is afraid. Who wishes he could hold a girl’s hand. Who all will you kill?’
I wrenched the gun away and walked back to the house. Aman followed me, still talking. ‘You have borrowed your brother’s truths. One day, you will understand that violence is not the answer and can never be.’
‘It is the answer,’ I said. ‘I will kill if I have to. The day I let down my brother will never come.’
‘Oh yes, it will,’ he said, smiling. ‘One day, you will know you cannot kill. Then you can start your life again.’
It was an argument that went on for several days. Aman could be incredibly stubborn when he chose to be. In his own quiet way, he was very persistent. We returned to it again and again.
His insistence made me angry. It made me furious that he thought I wasn’t man enough to pull that trigger.
‘Gandhi,’ I said bitterly. ‘His ideas have turned your head.’ We were on the roof, shovelling the snow off it. It had started to creak and groan under the weight of the snow, and I was afraid it would collapse.
‘That man helped me make sense of the world,’ said Aman. He shook his head. ‘God, it made my father crazy.’
Aman finished reading the Gandhi books and started a non-cooperation movement of his own at home. He was twelve. His father was part of an elite hit squad that was sent in to handle difficult situations. He wanted his father to get out of the business of being an official killer. So, he went on a hunger strike. His father raged, shouted, argued. Then he decided to ignore Aman, figuring that his son wouldn’t be able to keep it up.
Aman lasted seven days. On the seventh day, his father came home to find him passed out near the door. He took Aman to hospital, where Aman refused to let the doctors touch him. When they put him on a drip, he pulled it out. Finally, they had to tie him to the bed.
His father walked into the room and saw his son tied to the bed. He just turned around and walked out again, returning with a cup of ice cream. Aman refused to eat it.
‘Why?’ asked his father for the umpteenth time.
‘You’re all I have left. I don’t want you to be a killer.’ Aman hesitated before he said the next words. ‘And I don’t want you to die.’
His father sighed and began undoing the knots holding him in place. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Eat the ice cream. I’ll apply for a transfer tomorrow. But I will not leave the police.’ It was a bittersweet victory for Aman. But he never gave up the fight. He had spent years locked in a struggle with his father, both of them too stubborn to give up.
I never believed in Gandhi. I never thought his words worked in the real world. ‘All you know is theory. Theory and high ideals you read in a book. What do you know about violence? About being beaten up?’
‘I’ve stood there and let someone beat me up,’ said Aman. ‘I had to have six stitches.’
‘You?’ I said disbelievingly.
‘It’s not easy to stand there and let someone hit you,’ said Aman. ‘But I had a choice between reacting like everyone else. Or living by my real beliefs.’
That was when he told me about the bike ride.
‘I like bikes,’ said Aman. ‘I hadn’t really thought of where I was going to take her. We just rode. She put her arms around my waist, and her hair kept blowing into my face. It smelt of lemons. God, both of us were so happy and so free.’
He shrugged. ‘I will always remember that bike ride. It was the last time the two of us were simply and happily together.’
A car had come up behind them and forced them to the side of the road. It drove so recklessly that Aman had to stop his bike. The doors opened and the goons poured out. They went to grab Diya. Aman fought to get them off her.
Diya
Gandhi. All his friends teased Aman saying that he was the last Gandhian. I knew how much he admired the old man, but I didn’t realize how serious he was about non-violence until I watched him stand there and take a fist in the face.
The leader of the gang of thugs punched him. Aman took the blow without flinching. I tried to get to him but they held me back. I screamed and fought. And Aman just stood there while he was hit again and again.
‘This one is a smart-ass,’ said the leader. ‘He’s going to need some more teaching.’
He nodded at the other men. One of them stepped forward and jammed a stick into Aman’s stomach.
I screamed. I kicked. I was so petrified. Aman fell to the ground.
The secretary asked politely, ‘Her father doesn’t want you near her. You going to stay away from her now?’
‘Will you beat me if I don’t?’ asked Aman, struggling to get his breath back.
‘I’m afraid so. You see, you have to learn your lesson and learn it well.’
‘I’m not going to stay away from her.’
‘Go!’ I begged Aman. ‘Leave me and go!’ He just looked at me and got back on his feet.
‘This guy is a slow learner. Let’s teach him a good lesson.’ The secretary nodded to the men with him. They began beating up Aman with sticks. He made no attempt to defend himself or to fight back; he just fell to the ground, curled up and tried
to save his head. He began to bleed.
‘NO!’ I screamed. ‘If you hurt him any more, I will hurt myself. I will take a knife and cut my wrists. You tell my father that.’ It was the only thing I could think of. And I meant it.
The secretary turned to look at me. Then he pulled out his phone and dialled a number. He held the phone to my ear.
‘Papa, listen to me,’ I said. ‘You can’t watch me every second of every day. I will find a time and I will hurt myself. The more you hurt him, the more I will hurt myself. You want me to get married? I’ll burn my face. You’ll never find anyone to get me married to. Listen to me, Papa!’
There was a long silence. No one threatens my father. In my desperation, I tried.
Then my father said, ‘Hand the phone over.’ He gave instructions. One of the men shoved me into their car. I tried to fight my way back to Aman but they wouldn’t let me. The last sight I had of him was him lying on the ground as they beat him. I had no idea if they were going to let him live.
I screamed as loudly as I could, ‘I love you! Aman, I love you!’ Then the car started, and I was driven away.
Kabir
They didn’t kill Aman. But they beat him mercilessly. Then they took him to a police station. They told the officer on duty that he had been caught teasing a girl. ‘Must be the spoilt son of some rich father,’ said the officer. ‘What is your father’s name?’
Aman was grinning as he told the story. ‘It was really hard to smile because they had bust my lip and my jaw was swollen. But I couldn’t help laughing. I said, “My father’s name is Prem Shourie, DGP North Mumbai.”’
I gave a shout of laughter. ‘Shabash! Your father was the DGP?! Fuck! What happened then?’
‘The officer in charge almost had a heart attack. He sent a constable running off for the first-aid kit. But it only had some cotton and a bottle of mercurochrome. He yelled at the men who had brought me in, “Marwayega kya?” They vanished very quickly. Then my father arrived.
‘He didn’t say anything. We got in the car and drove away. He took me straight to a doctor who patched me up. I had to get six stitches in my eyebrow. I lost a couple of teeth and had three broken ribs.
‘Then my father asked if I would like to have an ice cream. There was no way I could have had an ice cream with the state of my mouth, but it was our childhood code. Whenever I needed comfort, my father had bought me an ice cream.
‘We took the car to Marine Drive and found a spot on the rocks. Then I sat there, watching my ice cream melt as my father tried to talk to me. We were talking after years. It wasn’t easy for either of us.
“So, the girl is in your college?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said, through swollen lips and broken teeth.
“Did you know who her father is?”
“Yes. You could say I was reminded the hard way today,” I said. I waited for the lecture but it never came.
“Is it any use to tell you to stay away from the girl?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
‘To my surprise, my father began to laugh. “This is me and your mother all over again.” He told me their story. He never talked about my mother. He had never told me a thing about how they met and got married. I always thought they had a boring arranged marriage. Turns out it was way more interesting than that.
‘My father was the local goonda. He and his friends used to hang around the locality, organizing all the festivals and the football tournaments. Once, my mother’s cycle got a puncture right at the edge of the football field. His father ran the local repair shop. When she went to the shop, my father fixed the puncture for her and promptly fell in love.
‘My grandfather refused to let his daughter have anything to do with the useless local boy. He tried to get her married to someone else.
‘But my father then turned up at that boy’s house and told him if he dared to marry her, he would break his legs. After that, my grandfather found that no one was willing to marry his daughter.
‘So, my father went over and suggested he let them marry. The old man said he would only give her to someone respectable. Then my father asked, “What is respectable enough for you?”
“Someone who puts people like you behind bars,” my grandfather replied. So my father went to my mother and asked her if she would wait five years. She said yes.
‘He sat for the civil services exam. Went off for IPS training. The day he got his uniform, he went to the old man and saluted him. “Now am I acceptable?” he asked. To his credit, my grandfather kept his word and let them marry.
‘All these years and my father had never told me the story. I had a sudden vision of him, young and reckless and in love. I liked it.
‘My sober, stable, respectable father looked at me and sighed. “You’re too young,” he said.
“How old were you when you met Mum?” He was silent. “You’ve forgotten, Dad. Try to remember what it was like.”
‘He sighed. His voice was very sad. “I made myself forget. I loved your mother very much. I couldn’t bear it when I lost her.”
“Me too,” I said. We were both silent for a while. I mushed the ice cream in the bottom of the cup. He finished his.
“So, what are we going to do now?” I asked.
“Go and ask her if she will wait five years,” he told me.
“She will,” I said. “I don’t have to ask to know.”
“Then let us see what happens next,” he said.
‘A great happiness filled my heart. I had my father’s support. It was worth getting beaten up to have got that.’
I looked at Aman and didn’t say what was in my own heart. I would have taken a hundred beatings to have my father’s support. I would have taken more to see my mother one more time.
Diya
My father faced me the morning after the festival. He looked at me with contempt, then turned to my mother. ‘See your daughter. This is what you taught her? To lie to her parents. To run around with boys.’
My mother said nothing. But I did. ‘Don’t blame her,’ I said. ‘Whatever I did, I did myself.’
My mother’s eyes widened. I had never talked back to him. She looked at me in fear.
He slapped me hard. ‘You children of today,’ said my father. ‘You sing one song with a boy, and you imagine that you are in love with him.’
‘I do love him,’ I said. He slapped me again, so hard that my lip split and blood began to fill my mouth.
‘Enough!’ said my father. ‘I don’t want to hear that word from your mouth. You go near him again in college, and I will make sure you leave your studies and get married within a month.’
I said nothing. There was no point. I didn’t want Aman to get hurt again. My mother pleaded with me with her eyes to be quiet. Afterwards, she washed my cut lip and told me to forget Aman.
‘Please,’ she begged. ‘You know what he’s like. You can’t go against him. He would never allow it.’
‘Maybe you can live your whole life without love,’ I said. ‘I can’t.’
When Aman came back to college, he had a limp. His right eye was swollen shut. All his friends looked at me strangely. I could see they blamed me. But he didn’t.
We first saw each other in the canteen. Aman smiled through swollen lips and began to limp towards me. I shook my head. On either side of me sat two men. My father had sent them to guard me. The principal had thrown a fit, but my father was not a man to be denied.
I shook my head. I pleaded with my eyes. I could not have borne to see him beaten up again. Aman understood. He stood in front of me for a long, long moment. On either side of me, the men tensed. Then he turned and limped back to a bench on the other side of the room.
He got a cup of coffee. I did the same. Then he sat across the room and drank it. He locked eyes with me and never broke the gaze. For every sip he took, I took a sip too. We were in a crowded canteen. But we could have been entirely alone, sharing every breath. There was pin-drop silence. Everyone was watching
us.
Then the smiles began. Right across that canteen there were smiles as we drank our coffee together, as close as it is possible for two people to be. People smiled and we drank our coffee, matching each other sip for sip. Each sip a declaration of love.
I understood that Aman was right. Victory doesn’t come from violence or strength. Victory can be as simple as a cup of coffee. A smile across a room. Freedom is in the small things. And no one can take those from you.
Kabir
So, you drank coffee and smiled at her across a room. That didn’t make her yours. It didn’t change anything.’
Aman smiled. ‘She was already mine. And nothing they did could change that. They can beat you. They can separate you. But who can stop you from loving?’
He made me really mad. ‘I would have run away with her. I would not have let those men beat me. I would have picked up my gun.’
Aman shook his head. ‘There is only one freedom. The freedom of choice. You can choose your response to anything. You can respond with anger, revenge and violence. Or you can respond with understanding and compassion. That is the only choice there is.’
‘But you couldn’t be together.’
‘My love is not so shallow that it cannot wait. I’m willing to wait for her. She is waiting for me. We will be together one day.’
‘Then why are you here in Kashmir? Where is she?’ I asked. I had to know.
Aman turned away from me. The shadows came back into his eyes.
‘A week after the night of the bike ride, she vanished.’
Diya
He vanished.
I went away, and when I came back, he was gone.
A week after Aman was beaten up, I got into the car waiting for me outside the college and found my mother sitting there, waiting for me. ‘What are you doing here?’ I asked.
She tried to smile. ‘We are going to see your grandmother. She is not well.’
Lies. I knew what was happening. I was being taken away from him. They didn’t know how to stop us loving each other. My minders must have reported to my father. And this was his solution: send her to jail.