The Eighteenth Parallel (12 page)

The procession had grown greatly in size by the time it reached Sultan Bazaar. There were as many others in it now as there were students. The Sultan Bazaar locality had seen frequent police lathi charges in the past four or five months and three people had died. It was here that the Indian tricolour was hoisted on the eve of the Indian Independence, and when 15 August dawned the flag was seen flying. The police were embarrassed and went round the city through the day in a sheepish huff; no one knew who had hoisted the flag. Then there was a clash with a crowd, followed by Section 144, a lathi charge, teargas and stabbings. These events had reverberations in Secunderabad as well. Chandru ran his fingers over his forehead. The procession inched along through very narrow and congested lanes that had been honoured with the name 'street'. The procession was about to cross a small bridge, the Lakdi Ka Pul across the Musi river. The plan was to hold a meeting at the open ground on the other side of the bridge. A posse of policemen with some senior police officials stood about a hundred yards before the bridge. Their presence brought the procession to a halt.

The sun beat down mercilessly. As long as the procession moved, there had been gaps in it, but now the ranks closed in tightly. Even as the police surrounded them, a message passed through the crowd—permission for the meeting had been refused, but the leaders were trying to get it even now. The meeting must be held, it had to be held, whatever the cost. No matter how late it got, there had to be a meeting. Sit down, all of you. Please sit down. Wherever you are on the street, sit down.

A few were already dropping out. They had realised the seriousness of the situation. Chandru was not familiar with this locality. Where should he go to catch a bus home? The people here were not like the people in Secunderabad. They had an alien look. There was no concrete building in sight, only mud-walled structures which looked like huts but which were not as convenient with their low and narrow openings for doorways. An open gutter in front with its slime and pong, dogs and pigs, hens and ducks. The houses had torn sacking for curtains. God knew how many hundreds crowded behind those sack-cloth curtains, inured to dirt and disease. Did religion have any relevance here at all? Yet these were the places where every communal riot took its toll, houses were looted, possessions were burnt and skulls cracked.

Chandru squatted on the street, a bare ten feet behind the front row, facing the group of helmeted policemen. They carried lathis—well-polished, shiny black sticks. Bloodstains wouldn't show on the black surface. Were these polished with blood by any chance? There was only a muffled noise to be heard. All traffic had come to a stop. Chandru turned to look behind and found that a part of the street was filled with the processionists, all sitting. A lot of police caps and lathis were seen at the back as well. What was happening? Where had all those people gone, those who had led the procession? How long could this calm last, with the procession now shrunk to an island surrounded by police?

Four police officers spluttered past on two motorcycles along the length of the procession. The next step would be a lathi-charge. Fear began to cover those who sat there, like molten tar.

Chandru looked round, frightened. There were people crushing him on all sides, but not a single familiar face. There had been at least fifty of his college friends with him when they had started. Had they slipped away? Or were they caught somewhere else in this crowd? What madness had led him on? Was he going to fall amidst strangers in a strange place, his skull broken?

A few people in the front row were trying to say something to the policemen, but at the slightest movement, a policeman waved his baton and shouted 'Sit down!'. It would take him only a minute to knock down the intervening heads and reach Chandru.

A police officer with a preoccupied look now approached the front of the procession and surveyed those sitting on the ground. His eyes halted at every face. Chandru locked eyes with him for a second. Brass buttons shone bright on his starched uniform. All those coloured stripes on his shirt seemed to proclaim him an experienced officer. He must have a family, children. Was he looking for his own son in the crowd?

A police truck now appeared on the scene and policemen in a different kind of uniform jumped out. The tear gas squad was here. Most of them wore masks. Now was the time for the processionists to decide—should they disperse, or stay and be beaten up?

There was a sudden commotion in the crowd, though everyone continued to sit. Stay where you are. Lie down on the street even if it means death. But why did young boys have to become the target of batons? They should be allowed to go. No, they shouldn't. Sit where you are. If the police start hitting you, lie down on the street.

Some start to weep. A few young boys near Chandru cry out for their parents : 'Amma! Appa! Save me!' They place their schoolbags on their heads. Someone says, 'Dip your handkerchief in water—It's the best thing for tear gas.' But where was the water? Even the Musi river was now just two streaks of water on its dry bed, as if someone had lanced it across. Anyway, the river was quite far off. One couldn't run there without getting hit. It was impossible to run at all in this crowd. He was trapped.

The tear gas squad stood in formation. Police whistles sounded from all sides and the loudspeakers blared in Urdu: 'Disperse in three minutes. You have just three minutes in which to disperse.'

The demonstrators who had sat as a disciplined group until now begin to run amuck. There is some attempt to control the general stampeding, but there is no stopping them any more. They run everywhere, staggering and falling and getting up. Chandru screamed 'Amma!' as he felt a rough shod foot on his back. Then he got up and started to run.

He had no idea where he was heading. The roar of the procession was still strident because of the adults in it. There were policemen in front and on the right. A row of small dwellings lined the left side of the street. The gaps between the houses were already filled with people, with more and more trying to squeeze in.

The first shell burst. A wave of foul smell and a column of smoke. Eyes began to burn and shrieks filled the air—Amma! Amma! Chandru dashed blindly towards a lane, not stopping to pick up the books that fell from his hand. Hundreds of men pressed forward from behind. If it turned out to be a blind alley, they couldn't all get in. On an impulse, Chandru poked a hand through a sack-cloth curtain and pushed. There was a door behind the screen which gave way. He let himself in, closed the door behind him and forced himself into a mud house. A modest place but a house all the same. Just behind the door was a washing place with a few battered old aluminium vessels. The puddle of dirty water at the mouth of the drain was covered with flies. Two hens scurried away flapping their wings. A figure was now visible inside the house, an old woman. She was emaciated and the cloth she wore couldn't possibly absorb any more grime. She opened her mouth. The upper front teeth were missing, the rest of the teeth large and stained. Before she could scream, Chandru extended his arms in a gesture of begging—no, she did not scream.

Masood couldn't have any inkling of all that was happening. Nor could all those others, those sherwani-clad people. But the way Masood and his friends looked at the students in the procession the next day was eloquent with contempt—so you think the likes of you can overthrow our Nizam, do you?

Chandru had seen the Nizam twice, both times as he passed them on the street. The police used to whistle down all traffic to a stop whenever the Nizam's car passed, mostly on a visit to the mosque. The Nizam would be sitting in a corner of the back seat, a shrivelled up figure occupying a tiny fraction of the seat.

Dislodging this man shouldn't prove much of a feat even for Chandru. This Nizam, His Exalted Highness Mir Usman Ali Khan Bahadur blah blah blah and that toothless old woman may have been brother and sister in some earlier birth. But then, Muslims don't have rebirths, do they? Even so, the old woman had an amazing likeness to the Nizam. Not that it would make any difference to her whether she was ruled by a Nizam or a Shivaji or an Asoka. Though not a beggar, she lived in degrading poverty, squalor and starvation, like the generations before her and after her. She could have been brought down with a blow of a breath or killed with a single blow of the hand. But she had understood his entreaty. She had not betrayed him to the police. But for her, Chandru would have been among the fifteen or so people whose heads had been broken that day. But Masood? Masood had a way of knowing all that.

Professor Ranga was going on and on about Shakespeare. John of Gaunt's wisdom, patience, tolerance and patriotism. Patriotism that had survived service under an arrogant king. John of Gaunt, an aristocrat related to the king, must have enjoyed all the good things of life in his time, mused Chandru. What about the poor people of those times, people like this poor old woman who must have formed the majority of the population? Would they too have declaimed themselves like John of Gaunt, spouting philosophy, idealism, advice? Were persons like them ever heard to speak? Did that old woman of Hyderabad ever have a voice ? If Shakespeare chose to make her speak, would he leave out the punning and obfuscating? Would it still be two meanings a word and four explanations a sentence?

Chandru clasped his hands tightly to his forehead as if to contain an explosion. He leaned forward and laid his head on the desk. Masood opened his eyes and winked at Chandru, his head still on the desk. Chandru turned his face away. Masood gave Chandru's ear a slow twist. Chandru turned, bridling, and said 'Leave me alone, will you?'

'Come now, don't get cross with me, friend,' said Masood in tones of endearment. And winked again. It was no ordinary wink.

The class was over. It was time for the science and history sections to go their different ways. Chandru overtook Masood and walked quickly towards the science block. Two teams were at a game of cricket on the playing fields.

Chandru told himself—in future, don't run away. Don't ever.

4

The impact of
Vidutalai,
the Tamil song on freedom that I sang was beyond all my expectations. The meetings of the Tamil association of our college used to be the least attended. The Telugu and Urdu association meetings always found the hall full to overflowing, but the Tamil meetings were mostly addressed to vacant chairs. A few students from other groups would come and sit with us for the first ten or fifteen minutes and then leave. Of the few Tamil-speaking teachers in our college, none except the Tamil pandit came to the Tamil meetings . The principal, being the president of all college associations, would adorn the central chair on the dais for five minutes. Not for a moment did I realise that Professor Tambimuthu was among those present when I sang about freedom: 'Vidutalai'. How could I when I was in a state of delirium throughout, call it ecstasy if you think the word also suggests an uncontrollable tremor of the mind and body. When Professor Tambimuthu smiled at me, my first thought as usual was that it must be meant for someone else, but it wasn't. Professor Tambimuthu taught us chemistry. I was not on smiling terms with anyone on the staff. In fact, I had become so adept at hiding myself that you could have pointed me out as an exemplar of anonymity. But there were occasions that challenged my claims to anonymity and here was one in the shape of Professor Tambimuthu. That evening found me standing in his room.

'Well, well, you're a Tamil boy, are you ?' he said in Tamil and wanted to know my name. Mind you, I had been his student for well over four months. Besides, I had once broken the stopper of the jar containing hydrogen sulphide making the whole class pinch their noses and run. Besides which I also shared my table and cupboard with the only presentable girl in the group. To crown it all, I had made this Tambimuthu himself call me an idiot. Despite all that, I seemed to have somehow managed to keep my name hidden from him. Anyway, I told him my name now.

'I didn't know you could sing,' he said.

My thoughts went back to the principal of my high school. He had begun the interview in much the same fashion. And then he had gone on to put me on the stage in a saree and had watched the fun.

'What song was that?' Professor Tambimuthu asked.

'Which one sir?'

'The one you sang on Tamil Day.'

'You mean
Vidutalai
sir?'

'Ah, yes. Say it again.'

'Vidutalai.'

'Sing it now.'

'Here, sir?'

'Yes.'

'Now,sir?'

'Yes now. Is it getting late for you to go home?'

'Yes sir... No sir'

'Won't take you more than two minutes, my boy. It was wonderful that day, you know'.

'I don't know sir.'

'Now get on with it.'

So I sang
Vidutalai
in that chemistry room haunted by spirits of Egyptian alchemists and Madame Curie, a curious amalgam altogether.

'Well, write it down for me, will you?'

I blinked as usual. 'Sir, this is a Tamil song. It can only be written in Tamil.'

'And you think I don't know Tamil?'

'No sir... All right, sir.'

I tore a sheet from the chemistry practicals notebook and wrote the song down, correcting lines that had sounded wrong when I sang, and in the process spoilt the lines that had been correct. Professor Tambimuthu took the sheet in his hand and scrutinised it.

'May I go now, sir?'

'What's the hurry, sit down.'

I continued to stand. I was afraid he might leave the subject of my singing and move on to my lessons. Also, my thoughts were with
Coverley Papers,
our set text for that year. For some obscure reason, the boys' nickname for Tambimuthu was Will Honeycomb. You may remember that he was the worthless son of a noble family, vain and fond of hunting and women.

'Sing it again,' said the professor.

'Again, sir?'

'Yes. Again.'

I took the sheet back from him, because I had written my own version of the song in it, and it wouldn't do to change the words while I sang again. This time, he joined me in the singing. I felt uncomfortable. What if somebody should hear our duet ? While I sang nervously off-key, the professor himself didn't seem to be a great believer in sticking to any pitch. So between ourselves, we produced the whole range of sounds that the human voice was capable of. Professor Tambimuthu was extremely happy. I had never imagined that music had such powers. He confessed, 'This is the first time ever that I'm singing a Tamil song.'