Thrity Umrigar Read online

  I go back to school on Monday, a new person. One of the first things I do is go up to Jaya. ‘Hey, I’ve been thinking about our conversation the other day. Sorry, men, I was a total bitch.

  But actually, I want to learn what happened to your mother. You know, with the Emergency and all, stuff like this is happening a lot.’

  Jaya eyes me suspiciously. ‘But I thought you wrote an essay praising the Emergency just a few months ago.’

  So she remembers that. ‘I know. I was a total idiot. But I understand more now. And, well, I was wrong, you know.

  And I’m very sorry I was so mean to you.’

  Jaya comes to school the next day with a crudely printed pamphlet detailing the abuses under the Emergency. I take it from her silently, not asking her any questions and tuck it inside a book. Later, I read it in the hallway after I am kicked out of physics class. I am shocked by what I read: political prisoners being mercilessly tortured, beggars being rounded up and chased out of the city, slum colonies being razed, the press being gagged, union officials being imprisoned, the constitution being revised, the police being given absolute powers. This is happening in the country where I live and until last week the only thing I knew about the Emergency was that the buses were running on time.

  Indira Gandhi has been Prime Minister most of my life. My generation had grown up automatically applying the female pronoun when talking about that office. Like many middle-class Indians, my family worshipped her, believing what Indira herself insinuated on several occasions—that without her, India would disintegrate into chaos, that the country needed a Nehru to rule it. The Nehrus were India’s Kennedys—urbane, charming, sophisticated, good-looking, charismatic. My aunt Freny often spoke with pride about a foreign news conference where Indira had answered questions in fluent French. My dad had been excited as a schoolboy when she had inaugurated one of the government housing projects that he had been a contractor for. Unlike many of the bald, paunchy, dhoti-clad, heavily-accented Indian politicians, the light-skinned, sharp-featured Indira spoke fluent English, dressed smartly when she went abroad, and seemed at ease among Western leaders. For a country still recovering from the national inferiority complex that was a leftover from British colonial rule, watching Indira flirting with Lyndon Johnson and going toe-to-toe with Richard Nixon and Pakistani President General Yahya Khan, was better than winning a test match against the Aussies. Unlike the other paan-chewing, pot-bellied doddering leaders, Indira was the kind of politician you could dress up and take out. At cocktail parties, businessmen spoke of how much easier life was under the Emergency, now that the union troublemakers had had their balls cut off; office workers returning wearily to their homes in the suburbs each evening were thankful that the trains were running more efficiently; ordinary citizens were just plain grateful that the constant bickering between politicians had ceased. And if that meant that a few fundamental rights had to be temporarily given up, well, one couldn’t have everything. Perhaps India was too large, too diverse a country to support democracy anyway. Look how efficiently those generals ran Pakistan. And if Indira’s familiar face—with the famous white mane running through her dark hair—graced every magazine cover and chastized us from every billboard, so much the better. After all, we needed Mother Indira to look over us and keep us from chaos and self-destruction. If there were rumours of her son, Sanjay, siphoning off money and rewarding his corrupt cronies, well, the guy was a technocrat and wasn’t a pragmatic, dynamic technical guy just what India needed at a time like this? And after all, Sanjay was a Nehru, the grandson of the great Jawaharlal Nehru. How bad could he be?

  I take Jaya’s pamphlet with me when we go over to Yasmin’s house that evening for a beer. I listen as the others chat about a Cat Stevens album that Jenny has just bought, listen to them make plans about going to a disco on Saturday but I feel strangely aloof from the conversation. When there is a lull, I pull out the pamphlet. ‘Hey, you guys, listen to this,’

  I say and begin to read.

  They listen in uncomfortable silence. ‘Yuck,’ Jenny says when I read the lines describing the torture of prisoners. I can sense from their body language that they want me to stop reading but I can’t and they are too polite to interrupt.

  Nobody knows what to say when I finish. ‘Geez. Yeah. Well, that’s too bad,’ Jenny says lamely, trying to break the silence.

  Patty picks up the thread of the conversation. ‘Wow, gosh.

  That’s terrible. What a country. But listen, we should decide because I need to let my cousin know. Are all of us going to the disco on Saturday?’

  For the first time since I’ve been friends with them, I feel ashamed of being in Yasmin’s house, for whiling away my evening drinking beer. For a split second I see it all clearly and with revulsion: The four of us, indulgent, narcissistic, seeking thrills and wasting more money in one evening than someone else might earn in a week.

  I get up. ‘I have to get home,’ I say. ‘I’ll see you all tomorrow.’

  Jenny gives me a quizzical look. ‘You all right, girl?’ she asks.

  ‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ I lie. I head into Yasmin’s bathroom and finger toothpaste onto my teeth, trying to gargle away the smell of cigarettes and beer before I go home. I also try to gargle away the faint but bitter taste of shame and self-disgust. On the way to the bus-stop I pluck two leaves from a nearby tree and grind their fragrance between my fingers to cover the smell of tobacco on my hands.

  Then, I go home.

  It is January 1977 and Indira Gandhi has called for new elections within two months. The opposition leaders have been released from prison and have formed a coalition called the Janata Party. India is in convulsions, a new order trying to emerge from the dark womb of the Emergency. The suddenly-unmuzzled newspapers are filled with stories of the atrocities committed in New Delhi. Living up to its reputation as the charmed city, Bombay has been spared much of the trauma but now even ordinary Bombayites are feeling the shame of knowing that we have lived in a cocoon of ignorance for the last two years. I have recently turned fifteen but even I can tell that, like the fresh pau baked at the bakery across the street, history is being made daily these days.

  The four of us have plans to go see a movie at Sterling. I almost don’t go because business is bad again and when I ask Babu for money he takes out his wallet and opens it for me to see its bare contents. I turn away in embarrassment for I know what it costs him to refuse me anything. ‘That’s okay,’ I say, trying to laugh. ‘It’s a stupid movie anyway and I didn’t really want to go. I’ll just call them and cancel.’

  I am dialling Patty’s number from the living room when Babu comes up to me and presses a ten-rupee note in my hand.

  ‘Found this under my pyjamas in the cupboard,’ he says.

  ‘Must’ve forgotten I had some money there.’

  I protest but he insists. ‘Go enjoy,’ he says. ‘This little money is not going to help me anyway. And who knows when you’ll next be able to go?’

  But riding on the bus with the three of them, I am feeling uncomfortable. Guilt at taking Babu’s last bill from him, unease over this new distance I’m feeling between myself and the other three, makes me jumpy. Also, earlier that morning Jesse had mentioned to me that there was to be a large student march at Flora Fountain that afternoon, protesting the Emergency.

  She was planning to attend along with her college friends. I wanted to invite myself but felt shy about doing so, as if I’d be gate-crashing a private party. But news about the morcha had made my afternoon plans with Jenny, Patty and Yasmin seem small and insignific-ant.

  The single-decker bus we’re riding is crowded and for most of the distance, Yasmin and I have been standing not too far from the open door. Jenny and Patty have found seats a short distance away from us. As the bus approaches Flora Fountain, it slows down, blocked by what seems like a wall of people walking on the streets in front of it. It’s the student demonstration. I push my way to the door of the bus, hanging on from the st
eel rod at the entrance. My pulse quickens as I notice the determined expressions on the faces of the students marching past, holding aloft their homemade signs and banners. They are talking, shouting slogans. ‘Indira Gandhi, shame, shame,’

  they chant. Then, the singing starts. My hair stand up on end before I can even place the song. They are singingWe shallOvercome in Hindi. The song shimmers in the bright sunlight of the day, a haunting combination of defiance and wistfulness, a battlecry and a prayer. As the bus crawls past the marchers, I notice a police officer in his khaki uniform tapping his fingers lightly against his baton, to the beat of the song. And then I notice that the place is crawling with policemen, notice the grey Jeeps behind the long procession.

  I turn away from the door and make my way back to the others. ‘It’s a demonstration against the Emergency. I know some of the folks who organized it. Let’s skip the movie and join the march instead.’

  They stare at me as if I’ve gone crazy. ‘Aw, come on, Thrit,’ Jenny says. ‘You know we’ve been waiting weeks to see this movie. Don’t be a wet blanket, please.’

  A moment passes between us. A stage in my life ends and a new one begins during that moment, although it will be a long time before I figure that out. An old allegiance falls apart, a new one waits to be born. Perhaps Jenny knows this too, because as I turn away and head back toward the entrance of the bus, she makes a move, as if to grab me but then sits back in her seat.

  I lean out of the bus, knowing I’m at a crossroad. If I jump off the bus now, it will end the closeness of my friendship with the other three. If I stay on, I won’t be able to look at myself in the mirror. I scan the crowd for Jesse, knowing that the decision will be easier if I can spot her. But I get no easy help. The decision is mine alone.

  ‘Stop watching, join us instead,’ the students are chanting in Marathi to the crowds of office workers who are standing on the sidewalk with their mouths open, watching the antics of the college students. But I think their words are directed specifically at me. I can continue riding this bus to the movie theatre, where I can be a passive spectator in someone else’s story. Or I can jump off this bus and help these kids write their own. A brand new story, Made in India.

  It happens so suddenly, I don’t even realize I’ve made a decision. My hand loosens its grip on the steel rod and I jump backwards off the slow-moving bus. The students next to me let out a cheer. ‘Hey,’ Yasmin shouts and I wave to her. ‘Enjoy the movie,’ I yell. ‘I’ll see you all Monday.’

  The next second I am swallowed by the large crowd that shifts like sand around me. If I stood still now, the energy and momentum of the crowd would propel me forward. But I have no intention of standing still. A jittery excitement and a shouting happiness move my feet. A college girl in a white kurta and blue jeans puts a casual arm around my shoulders.

  ‘I heard what you said to your friends. Glad to have you here,’

  she smiles. I smile back and then laugh, for no apparent reason other than the joy of marching on a Saturday afternoon through the streets of downtown Bombay with thousands of idealistic, intense-looking young people. I can’t wait to go back to school on

  Monday and tell Greta Duke about this adventure. She can only teach history.

  I’m making it.

  The joy is short-lived. We gather behind the statue of Flora Fountain and sit cross-legged on the street when I spot him—Fali Mehta, the Parsi chief of police who is an old childhood friend of dad’s and Babu’s. Fali uncle is sternly surveying the crowd, his hands on his hips and looking quite different from the jovial, back-slapping man I am used to seeing at parties and wedding receptions. My mind freezes with terror so that I forget to listen to what the student speaker addressing the crowd is saying. If Fali uncle spots me in this crowd, I am dead. The news will definitely get back to my dad and with his fear of radical politics, I know what my father’s reaction will be. My moderate, peaceful father has an instinctive dislike for zealotry or conflict of any kind and to him, challenging an omnipresent figure like Indira Gandhi is akin to challenging God. I cover my head with my hands and stare at the ground, trying to convince myself that Fali uncle will never spot me in a crowd of thousands.

  The next minute I hear his familiar voice, with its flat, broad Parsi accent, blasting through a bullhorn. ‘Now listen here,’

  he booms. ‘You are prohibited by law from going any further.

  The area around Mantralaya is closed to demonstrators. Now, settle down and have a peaceful demonstration and there will be no trouble.’

  A murmur flits through the crowd, like a silver fish parting the waters of a lake. There is some movement in the front of the procession and I surmise that the student leaders are trying to decide whether to defy the ban. Several minutes pass.

  Somebody begins a new chant and it floats over the crowd in successive waves. Then there is a lull, as if we are all getting drowsy under the mid-day sun. A

  policeman sits on his haunches at the edge of the crowd and trades good-natured remarks with the nearby crowd. ‘Give up your uniform and join us,’ a student says and the cop grins at him and then yawns. My earlier excitement abates as other emotions kick in—fear at being spotted by Fali Mehta; remorse at having abandoned my three friends so blithely; a slight boredom at the endless speeches denouncing the Emergency.

  Then, there is a shift in the weather. A cry goes up. ‘Onto Mantralaya,’ someone yells from the front and the rest of the crowd picks it up and leaps to its feet.

  ‘Stop,’ Fali Mehta yells into his bullhorn. ‘You are violating the law. There is a ban against gathering at…’

  ‘To hell with the ban,’ a younger voice competes on another bullhorn. ‘This city belongs to the people, not the government.’

  The crowd roars its assent.

  I am pushed forward by the moving crowd, like a blade of grass bopping on a heaving ocean. There is no time to think now, and no way to leave or head in the opposite direction.

  All is movement, a surging sea of clenched fists, raised hands and pounding feet. The singing, the shouting, the sloganeering have a new urgency now, louder, more frequent, more taunting, as if the tension and fear that we all feel can be kept at bay by a wall of sound.

  The front of the procession is going past the police barri-cades. And now there is a new sound in the air—wholly unfamiliar to me but so ominous, like the slithering of a snake, that I feel sick to my stomach. They are lathi-charging us. Policemen who minutes ago were trading quips with us are now attacking us, their thick, wooden batons raised high above their heads.

  They hold the batons in the air and whisk them around, making that horrible, slippery sound.Sik-sik-sik , the lathis go in the air, singing their deadly music seconds before they find their mark on somebody’s head or arm.

  I stand immobile, paralysed by a fear so numbing, it feels like a physical disease, as if I’ve had a stroke. Out of the corner of my eye I see a policeman heading toward me but all I can think of doing is closing my eyes and covering my head with my hands, as if not seeing the approaching danger will make it disappear. I have long since given up on my legs to carry me out of here, seeing how they have turned to rubber.

  Somebody grabs my left arm and drags me. ‘Come on,’ I hear a male voice say. ‘Run.’ He pulls me by the hand and together, we run, this way and that, avoiding crashing into other people, dodging the reach of the batons that whisk over our heads. I hold on to the warm but sweaty hand of my unknown rescuer, thinking I will never let it go. My legs are still rubbery but now they move as if they have wings beneath them. We are both gasping and heaving but still we run, hand in hand, crossing several streets, looking over our shoulders every few minutes, running to put as much distance as we can from the madness behind us.

  We finally come to a bus-stop that looks safe because it is populated with office workers and other non-student types.

  ‘Okay,’ says my rescuer. ‘You should be safe here. How old are you, anyway?’

  ‘Fift
een,’ I say.

  ‘Fifteen,’ he repeats, shaking his head and wiping the sweat from his brow. I look at him. He has a thin, narrow face, a scraggly beard and John Lennon glasses. He is wearing a blue checked shirt and loose, ill-fitting pants with sandals. His feet are dusty from our run.

  ‘This your first morcha?’ he asks, chewing his lower lip and when I say yes, he nods. ‘I thought so. That’s why I helped. I saw you jumping out of that bus. But if you do this again, you’ll get used to the lathi-charges. The bastards attack us every time.’

  ‘Thanks for your help. I don’t know what I would’ve done otherwise.’

  He is already turning away. ‘No problem. Well, I should head back.’

  ‘Head back where?’

  He grins. ‘Back to the demonstration. Can’t let those police goondas win, no? Well, see you around.’

  The next day I read in theIndian Express that at least half of the students had re-gathered after the initial lathi-charge. My throat clenches with pride.

  I decide not to tell Jesse about my presence at the march, knowing that she is forever torn between her own growing political militancy and her older-sister desire to protect me from all harm.

  But the image of the students, bruised, beaten, scared, returning to the place of their victimization, stays with me long after the story fades from the newspaper headlines.

  Seventeen

  KAMALA HAS BEEN WORKING AS A domestic servant in our home since I was eleven. She herself is a woman of indeterm-inate age. Her tight, fleshless face, her scanty hair, her tobacco-destroyed teeth, make it hard to guess how old she is. Her face reminds me of a boulder—it is yellow-brown, smooth and polished as if time and circumstance have removed every un-necessary ounce of flesh. And like an archaeologist, I have excavated Kamala bit by bit, starting with her name. When she came to work for us, she was known by the generic name of Ganga, the name that we confer on every servant who works for us. For years we called her Ganga until one day I asked her the revolutionary question: ‘What’s your real name?’