Surinder’s walks in the park had roused the interest of the wider neighbourhood.
He made sure they didn’t enter the park together. But after a few minutes, people spotted them, next to the dark benches. Even children stopped playing because they’d heard something was going on between the two: the sardarji from Amar Colony, and the middle-aged housewife, Mrs. Pinky Priyadarshini. Women emerged at their windows and folded up invisible clothes, or spoke to neighbours across the road to get a better look. Pinky’s name floated in the air like a virus.
Before moving to Delhi for work, Surinder had spent his life in Calcutta, near PG Hospital, where many years ago, Bappa Mallick had been admitted with a smashed head. Surinder’s mother had walked in the mornings with a large tin container to a cattle-shed, behind an old cinema hall, where the finger of a terrible deity had fallen off, or so the locals claimed. Surinder would accompany his mother every morning before classes began, and again in the evening before sundown. He liked walking. Together, they passed the container to the milkman, who, adroitly manipulating the teats of his animal, filled it with a litre of thick creamy milk. The cows in the shed looked like buffaloes, Surinder remembered: dark animals with humps above their hind legs, and the sounds they produced were ‘humbaa’, ‘humbaa’, like a Bollywood song he heard years later on TV. This, for some reason, was his best memory from childhood.
Pinky, on the other hand, repeated details from her domestic life: how she’d mixed a new ingredient in a dish, or why the layers in her hair didn’t fall properly. Sometimes, she seemed greatly agitated: her husband was nursing a toothache, or she’d burnt a blouse by mistake. Yet, Pinky was a formidable-looking lady, with a streak of white in her hair. She wasn’t sexy. At Pinky’s age, that would be a dangerous thing. Her hips were beginning to drift, and she talked too much.
“Be careful paaji,” Surinder’s friend Ashwin smirked one day. “You are easy to identify. If her husband finds out and arrives at your door, where will you hide?”
Surinder remembered the first time he’d gone to a police station. The officers, who wore white, spoke to his father kindly, providing a strip of Saridon to cure his headache. When they returned home later that evening, there were slogans and black paint inscribed on the wall. “Sardar Gaddaar Hain,” someone had written outside. The mob was convinced they were traitors. On another door, hung a prophecy – ‘We are what we look like’ – next to hastily-composed graffiti of turbaned men, with guns and beards and other weapons. The spellings were incorrect.
Several shops around the house had been vandalized. There was a fire in front of the local gurdwara, where they went next. Stray embers were lying on the ground. A mob charged and hit a wall with splinters. The other men inside the gurdwara rushed out and ushered them in. Then the big black gate at the entrance, which Surinder had never seen before, was locked securely. Soon, a police van approached and dispersed a group of hooligans.
For two days, they stayed at the gurdwara. Only once his father left, in the middle of the night with two other men, and brought back food to eat. He distributed packets among the other families, hiding in the inner rooms with sundry belongings, an old iron trunk, an army suitcase, large green bags and water bottles. Stacks of newspaper, old copies of Desh Darpan and Navi Parbhat, Punjabi dailies, were set against the rooms, spread on the floor so that the women and children could sleep on them. Surinder lay down at night with his mother, while his father stood near the gate with the other men, keeping watch: sticks, daggers and wooden staffs in their hands, in case there was another attack. A slow, heavy smell of jasmine hung in the air, raat rani, tiny greenish-white flowers hanging in a bunch that signalled the mysterious joy of Diwali.
Before sunrise, another violent horde had emerged, shouting abusive phrases, with fire and political flags, waving their arms in frenzy. Surinder’s mother covered his ears and took him further inside a large chamber. Then they went upstairs. The upper storey had a window. It was closed tight. But through a crack, Surinder saw the scene on the road. The mob had set fire to a police van. Khaki-clad constables were covered with blood, brutally pelted with stones that the mob had unleashed. Next, an Army jeep arrived at the spot. Surinder realized these were important people, because their uniforms were dark green with banners and ribbons on the chest, and they carried guns. “Sat Sri Akal!” a military officer roared, brandishing his rifle, while the crowd quickly dispersed, dropping their stones, running through the kerb in a stampede. “I’ll pump you with bullets,” he bellowed again, while another
Army truck rolled heavily into the intersection, parking itself outside the gates of the gurdwara. All the families were taken out and sent back home. For the next few days, a heavy silence hung in the neighbourhood. Schools were closed. They weren’t allowed to make a noise. They ate silently, sitting around all day, sleeping quietly at night, although Surinder suspected his parents didn’t sleep much. The Punjabi newspapers stopped coming. Even his father didn’t leave the house. He kept calling the police-station but the lines were either busy or dead. No one picked up the phone.
A week later, things were back to normal. Classes resumed. His mother spoke in her usual voice. Bappa Mallick came to see them. His head was bandaged. He smoked a cigarette consciously, not blowing his usual cloud of smoke, because his lips ached. After a few puffs, he stubbed the cigarette out. For once, his mother didn’t shout at him when he smoked. She made five cups of tea for Bappa that day and let him slurp on them, while he poured out the contents of the cup into a saucer and sipped from it like a dog. She’d taken their best tea-set out, Surinder noticed, from the main cabinet where the family kept its chinaware. Normally she served him tea in a glass or ceramic cup, the ones kept on the kitchen shelf. “You saved our life that day,” she told him, before he left, opening the door for him. “Thank you.”
That was how it started. The bells. The banging on the door. Hiding. It was the last day of October, 1984, a Wednesday. Far away, in Delhi, Indira Gandhi died. No, she was shot, assassinated. That made all the difference. “We are what we look like,” the mob chanted. Her assassins were Sikh. We are what we look like.
Surinder had gone to school. He went to a local Khalsa school, one where all the neighbourhood kids went, his friends and playmates, but not everyone. The Bengali boys went to a different school down the road. Classes got over early that day. The children were sent home. No one spoke in the hall. The teachers were huddled around the gate, whispering among themselves. Surinder stood on the concrete gymnasium with a water-bottle around his neck. Presently his mother came to pick him up. That was funny. He usually walked home alone. The school was five minutes from his house.
Before he could ask, his mother dragged him away, not through the main thoroughfare dotted with sweet shops, but through a maze of shortcuts, criss- crossing between lanes. Everything was deserted. The vegetable and fruit shops, the meat shops with butchers, carcasses and slobbering stray dogs, the flower-stalls and plastic cycles and the overflowing gutter - were all deserted. When they reached home, his mother pushed him up the stairs, as if forcing him to move, and then he saw that she’d put a lock on their door. That was funny too. She brought out a special key from the folds of her salwar kameez and let him in quickly. Then she closed the panel, locking it twice. After fifteen minutes, the doorbell rang.
It was the middle of the afternoon. Surinder rushed to open the door, but he was stopped near the kitchen. His mother slapped him. “Don’t open the door! Do you understand? No matter what happens, don’t open the door.” Surinder didn’t understand.
A few minutes later, the bell rang again. His mother prayed silently, clutching his hand. She put a finger on his lips when Surinder turned towards her. He sat on the cold mosaic floor, burying his head on her lap. It felt like a game. Except there seemed to be something serious going on. Suddenly a thought struck him. Had India lost?
He’d forgotten about the cricket match. India had been defeated in the first ODI. The second One Day, versus Pakistan, was underway. The team had batted well. One of the teachers had carried a radio with him. It was a forty-over match in a stadium called Jinnah. It was happening in Pakistan. He knew this.
They didn’t have a TV at home. Once he asked his mother, softly, about turning on the radio but she glared at him. Surely Pakistan couldn’t have won? Not already? Before he left the school premises, India had finished their innings. Oh, now he remembered! Vengsarkar was unbeaten on 94. With Sandeep Patil, he’d built a partnership before the latter was bowled out. An India victory would level the series. The last match could be a thriller.
Satisfied, Surinder sat up and decided to get a drink of water. Where was his lunch? Why wasn’t his mother giving him anything to eat? She usually stuffed him with parathas. He was hungry. A packet of Amul butter was kept on the table. Was she punishing him because he’d left school early? But that wasn’t his fault. It was the teachers, they’d thrown him out. An announcement came in the middle of maths class, and they were asked not to shout. The children had obeyed. They got up from the bench and lined up in twos outside the classroom, holding their partners’ hands across the corridor, into the gymnasium, where all the others had assembled.
The bell rang again. This time it was different. Fierce. The peal was sharper. It hung in the air like a sword. His mother looked at him, panic-stricken, and dragged him to the floor. Then the trouble started. The bells were accompanied by banging and shouting. For a moment, Surinder thought they would break down the door. His mother started to cry. She’d taken the telephone from the hall into her bedroom. The wires and lines had been pulled out and replaced into a socket near the bed. There seemed to be a hundred men outside the door, bellowing furiously, shouting words in Hindi and Bengali he didn’t understand. Faintly he heard Bappa’s voice. “They are not here,” he was saying. “I told you, they have left. They are good people.” Someone hit him.
We are what we look like.
Surinder heard him fall. Possibly his body rolled down a few steps. The sound came in waves across the door. Then they struck Bappa again. Someone kicked him on the stomach, because he let out a cry, like they did in the movies when a man was booted on the chest or in the gut. A stifled cry, the cry of a man conserving the last air in his lungs. Surinder was scared. His mother was breathing hard, unable to hold herself. A few people left their porch, singing Vande Mataram as they marched out. Surinder heard their footsteps retreat rapidly, going down the stairs in twos and threes. “Take him to the hospital. His head is broken,” someone said. “No, he’s just bleeding. He’ll live. You take him.” And then they departed. A few men were still banging on the door. Their fists pounded on the wood. Hard. “Come out! Come out! Where will you hide? For how long? We’ll get you,” they said.
“You are what you look like, you traitor!”
“Cabbages! Rotten cabbages!”
“Traitors!”
Suddenly, the phone rang. His mother rushed inside the bedroom to take the call. Surinder went with her.
“They are here!” a voice crowed excitedly. “Look, the phone stopped ringing.” Then Bappa woke up. “Let’s go elsewhere. These people have fled.” Bappa’s faint voice was the last thing Surinder heard that afternoon, before the sun set. His father had called. The family scooter had been marked with an ‘X’ but he was alive. A patrol car came to their house and took them to Bhowanipore Police Station.
“Why don’t you wear a cap, shordarji?” a police-man suggested, turning to his father. “Just for a few days? Until the trouble ends?”
“Don’t worry,” Surinder replied, while his friend Ashwin inspected the bright blue turban on his head with concern, “I know how to hide.”
*
The road bent into a wide clearing, yielding the edge of the park to a dead end. Pillars stood at its mouth, above the clearing. Surinder decided he didn’t want to walk anymore. Mrs. Pinky Priyadarshini, meanwhile, took small stiff steps, bumping into her shoes, obviously uncomfortable.
A chilly evening, the last day of October. The present.
“It’s been bothering me for some time,” Surinder began, breaking the silence, “But I think I know now. You look like her.”
“Who?”
Surinder smiled incredulously. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you? I can’t believe it. The eyes, the nose. And your hair! My god. The hair.”
Perplexed, Pinky yelled at Surinder: “Will you stop blabbering and come to the point?”
“I’m saying, you are the spitting image of Mrs. Gandhi. It’s uncanny. Really!”
“Who…?” Pinky screwed up her face and pointed at a balcony on the far side of the walkway. “The old widow?”
“No, no. Indira Gandhi. The Prime Minister.”
“Really?”
“You have her hair, her nose…”
“Yes, you said so.”
Surinder took a step back to inspect her face in the light, as if seeing it for the first time. “All her features, in fact. You look exactly the same! When she was young, mind you. Young and beautiful.”
Pleased, Pinky twirled a lock of hair around her earlobe. “I must see her pictures again.”
“Here.” Surinder extracted his wallet and pulled out a laminated photograph.
Pinky was taken aback. “You carry that around with you?”
“Priyadarshini, they called her. Easy on the eye,” Surinder smiled. “We are what we look like.”
*
He stood near the stone pillars and realized they’d stopped. Pinky was standing on a slope. She looked better in profile, he observed, going close to her. A light fell on her hair. It highlighted the arch of her neck, rising thickly from the collar-bone. Without taking another step, Surinder leaned towards Pinky’s jacket. Before he could change his mind, he grabbed her hand.
Pinky looked up in panic. He felt her breath on the jacket, spilling into his arm. His heart stopped. The touch felt familiar. Her hands were stiff, a dead woman’s hands.
“Stop it!”
Surinder realized he was holding her too tight. Already, she’d tucked her hand inside her jacket, having removed it from his. They were left standing awkwardly near the benches. The spot was dark, a thick leafy awning above it. Beyond, a curtain of trees separated the colony from a bridge under construction. Surinder leaned on a wicket gate and put his right hand in his pocket.
“You’re acting very strange.” Pinky sounded irritated and walked away. “Are you sick or what?”
They re-entered the park, walking side by side. Pinky cut across the concrete walkway, beyond the stairs near the bottom of a slope. Here, the benches were lit up. Quickly, she turned inside the gate to her colony.
“Maybe we shouldn’t walk tomorrow,” she said, a few feet from Surinder, holding the padlock behind her. “Get your hand out of your pocket.”
“Why?”
“Or the day after. We shouldn’t walk together.”
“Why not?”
“People are talking about us.”
“Monday then?”
“No. This is it. Goodbye.”
Then she turned and left. Pulling the jacket tightly around her, she exited through the wicket gate. One last time, she tossed her hair, flashing a streak of white at Surinder. Not once did she look back. He waved in vain.
Like every evening, Surinder walked back alone. The houses on the street were illuminated with tiny lights that hung like creepers from each balcony. Diwali was in the air. The bloom of jasmine, a burning in the distance. His flat on the ground floor, in line with the asphalt on the road. The security-guard had taken off his uniform by the time Surinder arrived. The October chill had deepened. October was fast becoming November.
The landlady was nestled in her armchair on the porch, staring into darkness. When she saw Surinder, her eyes lit up. Raising her head, she said: “Had a good walk?”
“Yes.”
“Enjoyed the walk, did you?”
“Er, yes.”
“I heard you held hands tonight. Good, good.”
The security-guard turned his head away, pretending to fuss over his belt. The landlady chuckled loudly.
“Well done!”
Surinder looked at his dim building. They hadn’t bought lamps yet. Perhaps they never would. Diwali wasn’t for everybody. The guard quickly took his cycle into the road. The air was smoky, lit by a slow fire, warming kettles at a teashop. A bouquet of heavy jasmines.
“If you want to carry on a scandal, wear a cap on your head,” the landlady thundered. “At least that way they won’t be able to identify you.”
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