This Is Not That Dawn: Jhootha Sach (90 page)

The young woman hung her head in embarrassment. Tara and Banti could not bear to sit there any more. They got up and left.

In the afternoon, they both began their search in the left half of the bazaar. The lanes were narrower, and the houses smaller and poorly built in this part of the mohalla; the stench was overpowering. As before, they asked everybody they met in the gali and those sitting in their doorway.

Seeing the day come to an end, the women went inside to cook the evening meal. A few exhausted-looking men could be seen returning to their homes.

They continued to search in the lanes in the fading light of day. Their legs were weary, and they felt they would drop from fatigue. Their hope and
patience were ebbing away. Finding no place to sit, they squatted on the gali pavement to rest their aching feet, carefully gathering their clothes so as not to touch anything. Their feet had swollen up from the day’s walking.

Tara said, ‘Let’s go back. We can come back tomorrow.’ Her throat was so dry that she could hardly speak. Banti’s voice too had become feeble, but she did not want to give up exploring yet another lane, or turning into those that branched off to right or left.

The smoke from kitchen fires was adding to the darkness of the evening. Tara felt fear in the pit of her stomach. How would they find their way out of this maze in the dark? Who knew what dangers lay ahead? Why would they willingly throw themselves into the wolves, whether Hindu or Muslim?

She begged Banti to turn back. But Banti saw another lane and headed towards it. At the end of the lane there was still another.

‘My baby!’ Banti screamed suddenly, and rushed towards a small house. She snatched a frail-looking child from the arms of a middle-aged woman sitting on the threshold and clasped him to her heart, bursting out in loud sobs.

The child cried out in terror at being grabbed and pulled away.

The street lights came on and there was light in the lane.

As if the dark of sorrow had dispersed, the child recognized its mother, stopped crying and clung to her.

Such an outbreak of joy at this long-awaited reunion left Tara perspiring profusely. Her knees buckled and she sat down on the gali pavement. It took her a few moments to collect herself. She took a breath of relief, feeling as if all her weariness had been washed in the sweat pouring from her body.

Banti’s eyes were on the child’s face, as her hands ran over his head and back, ‘Hai, how thin he has become! All skin and bones, what happened to you, my baby!’ she began to weep.

Attracted by the loud crying of Banti and the child, several women from the neighbouring houses gathered around them. They guessed that the child’s mother, who had been separated from him, had come back. Their eyes and lips opened wide in amazement, they asked:

‘Hai, how did she get separated from her child? Where was she, all this time?’

‘How could she live without her little baby?’

‘Hai, she must have a heart of stone!’

One woman spoke up loudly to tell the others, ‘They told us that the child’s mother had fallen sick and died on her way here.’

Banti was engrossed in kissing her child and fondling him. Tara explained that the Muslims had locked several girls and women in a big house near the mandi in Shaikhupura. After their rescue by the Indian government, she and Banti had searched through several camps and eventually arrived here.

‘Ah yes, her story is the same as Manso’s from that neighbour’s family. She too managed to get here after being abandoned.’

‘But did they take her back! How could they?’

Banti’s mother-in-law came up quietly, took the child away, and stepped inside the house.

Banti was following them when the mother-in-law shouted at her angrily, ‘Stop! Go away! Don’t come in here!’

‘Why! This is my home, where else should I go?’ she pleaded and bent down to place her head at the mother-in-law’s feet.

‘Go away, I told you. Of what use you are to us!’ she kicked Banti’s head aside with her foot.

Banti was stunned. She held on to the door jamb to steady herself, and then sank to the floor, with her hands to her head.

Tara felt her knees giving way. To keep herself from falling, she sat on her haunches beside Banti.

A few more men and women from houses in the lane came and stood around Tara and Banti. Arguments broke out over whether the daughter-in-law should be allowed to enter the house.

The woman who had mentioned the child’s mother being dead, protested again loudly, ‘How can they take her back into the house? The daughter-in-law of that family from Chukri had come back, just like her. Do you suppose the Muslims would have left them undefiled? They broke down the doors of homes and raped the women they found inside. Would have let these two go untouched? Just imagine!’

Tara felt choked by the anger and frustration rising inside her. She somehow managed to say to Banti’s mother-in-law, ‘Maaji, how is she to blame? She didn’t stay behind on her own free will. You were cowards, and left her behind. She came back at once to you, without thinking of anything else. For the past nine days she has been looking for you.’

A young man spoke up in support of Tara, ‘She’s right. You’re the guilty ones. Aren’t you ashamed of yourselves, you were spineless enough to leave her behind! You’re the biggest sinners, you shameless people. The child’s mother has the first right over him, not that old woman!’

Another voice said, ‘Hundreds of Muslims must have ravaged … She’s been dishonoured!’

Holding out his arms towards his mother, the child was screaming and weeping.

‘The child wants to go to his mother! It’s her child, why can’t she have her own child!’ someone pleaded.

‘How is he her child? He belongs to the father.’

‘Don’t ask me! I don’t know anything!’ the mother-in-law held tightly on to the child. ‘My sons will decide when they return.’ She shut the door.

The crowd continued to stand and argue about Banti’s right to her own child and the mother-in-law’s reaction. Everyone talked, but no one listened. They spoke in different accents and in different dialects of Punjabi. Tara’s head was spinning. She didn’t know what to do. Surrounded by the crowd, she and Banti sat on the ground helplessly like criminals, their elbows on their knees and heads between their hands.

‘They’ve come! They’re back! They’re both here!’

The clamour of voices quieted. There was the sound of hobnailed shoes and of the steelyard measure tapping on the gali pavement. Tara and Banti looked in the direction of the noise. Two men, each carrying a bundle of bolts of cloth over one shoulder and a steelyard measure in their hand, were approaching.

Banti covered her face with her aanchal and began to weep.

Several voices from the crowd, speaking simultaneously, told Manohardas and Gopaldas what had happened, along with their own opinion and the story of Manso who, just like Banti, had come back to her family. The brothers listened in silence. Gopaldas knocked at the door with the end of his steelyard. The door opened. Gopaldas quickly stepped inside to evade the crowd. He stuck his head out and said, ‘She was among Muslims for two months. How can we take her back?’

The mother-in-law stood wedged in the half-open door, waiting for Manohardas to enter.

‘You go in,’ Manohardas told his mother and took her place in the half-open doorway. Pointing to the sky with his yard measure, he spoke in a plaintive voice to Banti and the crowd, ‘Whatever was His wish. We were driven away from our homes and faced ruin. Thousands suffered the same fate. It all was His doing.’

Tara used all her strength to cry, ‘Have some fear of God! Was it her fault in any way?’

‘But was it our fault? We lost our home, and we lost our daughter-in-law. It was all His will. Why did you bring her here?’

Manohardas was about to shut the door when the same young man angrily pushed at the door, and stammered in protest, ‘Have you no sh-sh-shame! If you’re not to blame, who is? If you were so bothered about your r-r-religion, you should have died p-p-protecting her. You b-b-betrayed that innocent woman…’

‘If some one grabs you and stuffs shit in your mouth, will you cut off your head?’ a young woman shouted in fury, her hand pointing accusingly.

‘Who are you to meddle in other people’s affairs? What have you got to do with this? Go away!’ Manohardas slammed the door shut.

Tara was at a loss what to do. Her head reeled. What was happening in front of her? What was she to do?

‘I’ll kill myself here!’ Banti screamed.

She had struck her head against the front door sill.

Tara went numb with shock. The people watching them were stunned too. Banti hit her head on the door sill and shouted, ‘I’m going to kill myself here.’

Five, ten, twenty times she struck the door sill with her head. Her voice became faint but she continued to beat her head down.

A woman standing nearby screamed.

Another woman cried out and ran away.

A man cursed loudly at Banti’s husband and his family.

In the light of the street lamp, Tara saw Banti’s face, bruised and running blood, rising and falling, rising and falling. She suddenly realized that Banti was trying to kill herself!

She pulled Banti up and held her head against her knees as hard as she could.

An enraged Banti pushed Tara away. Tara fell backwards.

Banti struck her head twice more as a man tried unsuccessfully to grab Banti by the shoulders.

Tara got up and tried again to pull her back. Banti fell backwards lifeless. Her mouth was open, and her face was covered in blood.

Tara put Banti’s head in her lap and covered it with her dupatta. Her own body was shaking violently. She closed her eyes as she felt her strength
draining away. Some voices from the crowd muttered angrily in disgust about the treatment meted out to Banti.

A few came forward to help. Tara felt she was going to faint. She bit her lip and shook her head to remain conscious, and wiped Banti’s face with her dupatta as she leaned over her face.

Tara opened her eyes and saw three women and four men standing over her

‘This one’s still alive,’ she heard. She saw Banti’s body lying beside her knees, as flies buzzed over her blood-covered face. Next to her on the gali pavement was a bolt of brand-new red cloth.

Tara’s head throbbed with pain. She opened and closed her eyes several times then, in a flash of clarity, realized that Banti was dead.

‘Just look at these shameless people! Getting a red shroud for her, because she has a husband who’s still alive!’ a woman said in anger and disgust.

‘She became a sati for her husband,’ another woman said.

‘Became a sati even when her husband is alive,’ said the third.

Tara sat in a daze. She did not have enough strength to cry.

‘Come, you can wash your hands and face at our house,’ one of the women said, putting a consoling hand on Tara’s shoulder.

Tara shook her head in refusal.

Sunlight had covered one half of the gali. Tara sat unmoving and watched. A bier was being made for Banti. Gopaldas and Manohardas worked in silence, aided by two other men. Some women carried Banti’s body into the house to give it a ritual washing.

The body, shrouded in the red cloth, was placed on the bier with due ceremony. Gopaldas, Manohardas and two others lifted the bier and put its poles over their shoulders.

The gali echoed with the chant of a bier being carried out:
Ram-nam satt hai! Gopal-nam satt hai! Har ka nam satt hai!

Tara wept inconsolably. Her only friend and companion was now lost to her.

A young woman came up to Tara, laid her hand gently on her shoulder, and said, ‘Come with me, sister. Have a wash, and drink some water.’

‘I want to go back to the camp,’ said Tara. She wanted to run away from this place.

The young woman and another young man supported Tara as they walked
her to the tonga rank. They both cursed their fellow Hindus for such callous behaviour, in the face of their so-called claims of kindness and compassion for others, ‘Whatever we Hindus suffered was not enough to teach us a lesson. Such unfeeling and cruel people have no place on this earth; may they vanish without trace.’

Tara, barely conscious, her eyes half-open, got on to a tonga going from Paharganj to the railway station. In front of the station building, some other tongawallahs were touting for fares: ‘Two annas per person up to Kashmiri Gate.’ Tara had no strength left to walk. She sat in one of those tongas.

When she arrived at the camp, the residents were crowding round the water taps for their bath, and filling up their water containers. Some of them, with towels and angauccha on their shoulders and chewing on twigs of the neem tree to clean their teeth, strolled on the path between the rows of huts, waiting for the crowd to thin out. Tara, her eyes downcast, went straight to her hut. She did not notice that those she passed stared at her with curious, questioning eyes. A throbbing headache blurred her vision.

In a corner of the hut sat Sukhdet, peering into the mirror perched on her trunk. In another corner Dhammo, facing the wall, was breastfeeding her baby girl. Upon hearing Tara come in, they turned to look at her. Tara did not return their gaze. A woman she had not seen before was sitting on her chatai. Tara lay down on Banti’s chatai, and using her arm to pillow her head, closed her eyes.

In the haze of confusion caused by her throbbing headache, she heard faint voices near her head. Then in a distinct voice, ‘Where did you go?’

Tara opened her eyes and saw Nihaldei standing over her. Nihaldei’s hands were smeared with the dough she had been kneading, and she held them away from her clothes. Dhammo’s mother-in-law, her head between her hands, was squatting beside Tara’s chatai, and staring at her with anxiety and curiosity. Dhammo’s eyes, with the child at her breast, were upon her. Sukhdet also stood close by. Tara saw that everyone was looking at her inquisitively.

‘Where did you go? Where did you spend the night?’ Nihaldei asked again, in a loud harsh voice.

Tara did not feel up to giving any explanation. She let out a long sigh, covered her face and head with her dupatta, and defiantly turned on her side.