by Keya Ghosh
The village my father came from was a remote one in the middle of Maharashtra. It made for a perfect jail without bars. My phone was taken away. There was no question of an Internet connection. I was watched day and night. In the other room, my grandmother muttered endlessly in her dementia that got worse every day. My mother talked to me, trying to convince me that I was wrong to go against my father. I told her to be quiet. It was my life to waste. I would not do what she had done and give my life to a man to whom it meant nothing.
Every day I wept, I argued, I fought. A month later, when I was allowed to come back, Aman was gone. His father had been transferred to Kashmir. He had gone with him.
When I logged in to my email account, there was a mail from him for every day we had been apart. He had sent me a poem every single day. The last mail was sent three days before I returned. His phone was now switched off. There was no reply to the endless mails I sent him. None of his friends knew where he had gone. None of them could help me contact him. He was gone from my life. I only had his words.
We can never be apart
No matter the distance
I go away closer
My breath goes into the world
And calls your name
When I count the stars
Each one
Is you and you and
You
Are always there.
Kabir
I stared at Aman in surprise. ‘Vanished? Where did she go?’
Aman shrugged. ‘No one knew. None of her friends. I tried calling her house. I even got her father’s number. No one ever took my calls. I tried waiting outside her house. Nothing. Her phone was switched off. She didn’t reply to any mails. After two days, I went to my father.
‘I just walked in on him having a meeting with a whole lot of top brass. I stood there while he told them to go away.
“What is it, beta?” he asked me.
“She’s gone. She’s just vanished. I don’t know where she is. She’s not at home, and no one can tell me anything.”
‘He took off his spectacles and rubbed his nose. He used to do that when he was going to say something he knew you wouldn’t like.
“If I was her father, I would have tried sending her away. Just to see if that didn’t make it wear off.”
“It’s not going to wear off,” I said. “What if they marry her off? What if they beat her?”
“Aman, calm down and think rationally—”
“Did you?” I shouted at him. “Did you?!”
‘I slammed the door behind me. My father wrenched it open and shouted down the corridor, “Where are you going?”
‘Policemen were snapping to attention, watching us curiously. “To file an FIR. A missing person report,” I said.
“Come back here, Aman!” he shouted.
‘I walked away without looking back.
‘The officer at the desk looked really nervous when he told me he couldn’t write the report. “Sahib has asked you to wait.”
“Are you going to do your duty or not?” I said, made frantic by my worry for her. “If you refuse to file this report, I shall go to the press.”
“Sahib has asked you to wait until he returns,” he repeated. “He has gone to meet her father. He said to please go home and wait.”
‘So, I waited. What I would have given to be at that meeting! My father and hers. A rock meeting a mountain.
‘My father came home after a couple of hours. I was sitting at the dining table waiting for him. I had calmed down by then. I pulled some ice cream out of the fridge and silently scooped it into two bowls for us. My way of saying sorry.
“I spoke to her father,” he said. “He has sent her away for a while. He doesn’t want this relationship.”
“What did you say to him?”
“I said that we cannot dictate to our children who they will love. To give both of you time. But he would not listen.”
“I knew he wouldn’t,” I said.
“I knew that too,” said my father, “but I had to try. You are my son. This is your happiness.”
‘We were silent for a while.
‘My father spoke carefully. “I got back to my office to find papers on my desk. I have been transferred to Kashmir. Effective immediately.”
‘That shook me. It had never occurred to me that there would be repercussions for my father.
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
“I have two options,” he said. “Resign. Or go.”
“Which one are you going to take?”
‘My father looked me in the eyes as he spoke. “I understand you love this girl. But you have already been hurt because of it. They beat you up. With me out of the way, I don’t know what they would do to you. Come with me.”
“You’re going?” I said, shocked.
“She is gone for a while. You can do nothing here except wait. Come with me. We will come back.”
“No,” I said immediately.
“Please,” said my father. “You are all I have left. Please, my son. Come away with me. We will come back. Give it time. Let me think of a way. Please.”
‘We hadn’t spoken to each other properly for years. He had never begged me for anything before.
“Do you know where she is?”
“Yes. She is safe. She is not married. She is in her father’s village, in her grandmother’s house. I have people watching her. I knew this was coming. I am a policeman, you know.”
‘I was so relieved, I could have wept. “Thank you,” I said.
‘He looked at me. “I promise you that I will find a way to get you together. I promise that I will have my men keep an eye on her so that she comes to no harm.”
“What if he marries her off to someone else?”
“I won’t let it happen. I swear. I swear on your mother.”
‘I knew there was no oath more powerful for my father. I knew there was nothing more I could do for the time being.
‘I agreed to come away. To bide my time. I was sure that the love between me and Diya was strong enough to outlast any separation. I thought I would go away for a month. Things would calm down. And my father would work out a plan for us to be together.
He looked at me. ‘Then it happened.’
My brother took him. Three days after he landed in Kashmir, my brother picked him up in broad daylight from the middle of a crowded street. He was the son of the new DGP and a target. Aman came to Kashmir and ended up in a cabin in the middle of the woods, unsure if he was going to live or die.
‘I don’t know if she is back. I don’t know what has happened to her. I know nothing!’ he said. ‘And she has no idea what has happened to me.’
‘I’m sorry, Amanbhai,’ I said. I was terrified. I knew how this story ended. Kidnapping stories never ended well. She would never know what happened to him.
He knew too. ‘I don’t think I will ever see her again,’ he said. ‘Your brother will not let me live.’
He had put into words the thought in my head. I hadn’t expected to become his friend. I hadn’t expected to start calling him ‘Amanbhai’. I couldn’t look at him.
He spoke softly, with irony in his voice.
Is it my fault?
Is it yours?
Blame instead the stars,
That our lives are tied to
With such fragile thread.
Know that all men live,
All men die.
His voice trailed off into silence. He lay down and pulled his blanket over his head.
Fate. It had brought him here, thousands of miles from the girl he loved. Held hostage by men who hated his father. Not knowing what had happened to her. She not knowing what had happened to him.
Blame the stars. Who else can you blame?
Diya
Why is losing someone the only way you learn just how much you loved them?
I knew I loved him. But it was only when he was gone from my life that I realized what it meant to have him in
it. Even if we never got a chance to speak or to be together. Just seeing him in college. Watching him from across a room. Walking down a corridor and hearing his voice talking to someone. Just knowing that he was alive and well and somewhere close.
I told myself he loved me. I told myself he would return. His father had taken him away too. But I had this bad feeling. This sensation of falling down that stayed in my stomach, filled my days, and even my dreams.
He was gone and I had nothing left to hold on to to get from one day to another.
So, I sang. I sang all the songs that we had sung together. I closed my eyes and imagined his voice joining mine. My father locked me in a cage, and I sang like a bird.
The stars you named,
Became ours forever,
They watch in a still dark sky.
The love you named,
Can leave me never,
It can never die.
I will count the stars as I wait for you,
And make the whole sky ours.
This world is not enough to hold
Our love, so we reach for stars.
Kabir
Aman refused to talk about her any more. When I asked, he would change the topic. He began to ask me questions instead. About the home I had left behind. My mother. My father. He had a way of listening that made you talk about things you had buried deep. I told him about my brother and the sixer that changed our lives.
‘Have you ever played cricket after that?’ he asked.
‘No,’ I said.
‘Come on,’ said Aman. ‘Let’s go play.’
I refused. ‘I’ve never touched a cricket bat again. I don’t want to.’
‘What happened was an accident. You can’t punish yourself by giving up the thing you love the most.’
‘My brother suffered for me.’
‘Adding your suffering to that won’t change anything. 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 shrugged. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let us be happy for a little while.’ I felt so sad and guilty that I agreed.
We played cricket under the white trees with a slat of wood and a rubber ball, struggling to see through the falling snow. I refused to bat, so I bowled. Aman batted, and he was awful at it. We laughed so much that snow fell off the trees as the sound echoed around us.
I didn’t want to touch that bat, but Aman was so damn inept that I finally had to demonstrate how batting was done. I just meant to show him how, but I touched it and then I didn’t want to let it go. Aman bowled, I batted, and we played in the snow until the world turned to twilight and the stars came out. Happiness came back to me, and it had been so long since I had been happy that I couldn’t recognize it.
I’m stupid. It didn’t strike me till after he was dead that he was playing that badly on purpose.
That night, it stopped snowing. The rumble and thud of lumps of snow falling from the trees ended. Silence descended. It meant my brother would be back soon.
I made a decision. ‘You must go back to her, Amanbhai,’ I said.
He looked at me with those sad eyes of his. ‘I don’t think there is much chance I will get out of here alive.’
‘No. I won’t let them kill you,’ I said.
‘You may not have much choice in the matter,’ he said softly. ‘I am a hostage. Your brother hates me. My father is the DGP, and they want to make a point.’
I had decided what I had to do. ‘Tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll let you go. Just run away.’ It was a betrayal. I was betraying my brother and the cause. But Aman had become a brother too.
‘I will if you come with me,’ he said softly.
‘I can’t. I have a cause.’
‘Come away with me. Come on. I’ll take you to Mumbai. We’ll get you in a college. Maybe you’ll even find a girlfriend.’
‘I can’t, Amanbhai.’
But that night I lay awake thinking about going to college in Mumbai. Hanging out with friends. About worrying over nothing more than an exam. About walking into a canteen and ordering a cup of coffee. A simple cup of coffee and all the freedoms it implied.
And I lay awake thinking about her. The girl with a voice like light. But in the end, it came back to my brother. I couldn’t leave him. Not after all that he had borne for me. I could not betray him to that extent.
Aman stayed awake too. He was writing something by the light of the lantern. I could hear the rustle of papers. I thought it was a poem. But towards midnight, he said, ‘I know you’re not sleeping,’ and handed me a letter. It had her name on it.
‘Why are you giving this to me? Give it to her yourself.’
‘I want you to take it to her.’
‘But she lives in Mumbai . . .’ I began and stopped. Mumbai. A world away from here. A world forbidden to me.
He just looked at me. ‘If anything happens, you must take it to her. Promise me you will.’
‘Nothing will happen, Amanbhai. You will leave tomorrow. And I won’t tell them a thing, I swear. I’ll throw them off the trail.’
‘Still. Just promise me.’
I made him the promise while the wind sighed and the night lay silent.
‘Mere ma ki kasam, bhai, I will do it.’
The next morning, I woke him up before there was light in the sky. I had packed a few things.
‘Come on, Amanbhai. You have to leave now,’ I said. ‘It hasn’t snowed through the night. I will point you in the right direction. And I will cover the tracks you make as far as I can.’
He looked at the little bundle in my hands. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I won’t go. Not unless you come.’
I wasn’t expecting that. ‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘This is my life.’
‘It is not. It is not the life you should be having. It is not even the life you want.’
‘I can’t go with you,’ I said.
‘Then I will not go,’ said Aman stubbornly.
I argued. I begged. I even used her name to try and get him to leave. ‘She is waiting for you, Amanbhai. You can’t let her wait.’
‘I want you to meet her. I want to take you back with me and say to her, “This is my friend Afzal. He’s starting a new life.”’
‘If you stay here, you will die!’
‘No,’ he said softly. ‘If I leave you here, you will die.’
Such a stupidly stubborn man. At one point I lost my temper and threatened to kick him off the porch. He started laughing. It made me so mad. But how can you stay mad at someone who smiles so teasingly at you? And who only wants to save your life?
I sat down next to him. ‘Let’s pretend,’ he said. ‘Let’s pretend that we aren’t here. That you’ve come with me. We are in Mumbai.’
‘In college,’ I said, unable to help joining in.
‘In the canteen,’ he said, smiling. ‘Hanging out. I’m reading a book.’
‘What else is new?’ I said, rolling my eyes. ‘All you do is read poetry.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m ordering a cup of coffee,’ I said slowly. ‘And when it comes, I’m going to drink it. One sip at a time. And if I’m lucky, there may be a girl across the room who drinks every sip with me.’
I said it, and it became real. I knew that I would leave. That I would go with him. To Mumbai. To college. He knew too. It was evident in the grin that spread across his face.
‘So now what?’ I asked.
‘Now we have some tea,’ said Aman, calmly. ‘Then we both leave.’
I was so exhausted with arguing, I didn’t protest.
He made strong tea with ginger, and we sat on the porch and drank it. My last cup of tea. My last time on that porch. My heart lifted.
Aman was humming as he drank. I realized what the song was. ‘Bombay se aaya mera dost’. I burst into laughter. Then I began to sing with him. We both got up and capered on that porch, singing and dancing in our happiness. Then my voice faltered and stopped.
‘What is it?’ said Aman.
There were shadows standing under the trees. They moved, and my brother and three men stepped out into the clearing.
‘Singing,’ said my brother. ‘The fucker is singing.’
He ran forward and swung the barrel of his gun, clubbing Aman, who fell from the porch into the snow. His blood was bright against the white ground.
‘Bhaijaan! What are you doing?’
‘No,’ he said, turning to me. ‘What are you doing? I left you a prisoner. Not a singing companion. This man is our enemy. Not a friend.’
But he had become one. I didn’t dare say a word. Aman was getting groggily to his feet. My brother kicked him hard. He fell to his knees and stayed there.
‘Do you know what your father did yesterday?’ my brother said. Aman said nothing, just watched him warily, blood dripping off the side of his head. ‘Do you know what he did?’
I felt my heart sinking. My brother was very angry. I had seen the things he did when he was angry.
‘We asked for three men in exchange for you. Instead, your father led a raid on a safe house. He expected to find you there. You weren’t. But three of our brothers were, and now they are dead.’
He shoved his face close to Aman’s. ‘Your father is a murderer. And he must be punished.’
Aman spoke softly. ‘I am not responsible for what my father does. I do not believe in violence. I am sorry for your loss. Very sorry.’
‘You’re sorry? It’s going to take more than that.’ My brother put his gun against Aman’s forehead. ‘I am going to deliver you to your father. Dead.’
I jumped from the porch to the ground and stood in front of Aman.
‘Bhaijaan, he doesn’t believe in violence. He thinks what his father is doing is wrong.’
My brother stepped back and looked from him to me.
‘Why do you plead for him?’ he asked.
I said, ‘He has nothing to do with the police. Or politics. That is just his father.’
‘He is an Indian,’ spat my brother. ‘He is the son of a murderer.’
‘He is a good man,’ I replied. This made my brother furious.