Short Story 2014 Featured Writer, Vandana Jena

One Rotten Apple

The screeching of the van’s brakes brought me to the window. I pulled the

curtains apart and the sudden burst of sunlight made me blink. A truck

stood parked outside our apartment building. “We have got neighbors,” I said, a note of enthusiasm creeping into my voice. 

 There was no reaction from Mum and Dad. Their heads bent, they were pouring over the scrabble board. “A seven letter word, and that too on a triple word score,” said mother rubbing her hands in delight as she quickly made BISCUIT. Dad looked a little put out. She had won again. She usually did. 

 Ravish came into the drawing room at that time. “Mom, I want breakfast,” he muttered. He voice sounded crabby. He had not slept the whole night. The Law School Exams were around the corner. “SYNTAX,” she said swooping upon the word TAX dad had made.  “SYNTAX on the triple word score yet again,” she let out a cry of delight. “Mom,” Ravish’s voice sounded unnaturally loud, “I want breakfast.” “It’s on the table,” she said, her head still bent, “the cornflakes, apple, milk, sugar and orange juice.” “I want scrambled eggs,” he insisted, his voice peevish. 

I got up from the window sill and walked into the kitchen. I put a frying pan on the stove top of the cooking range, broke two eggs into it, added milk, butter and salt, stirred it gently on a slow fire, and within minutes had spooned it onto a plate along with two crisp slices of toast. Ravish wolfed it down appreciatively and said, “Thanks di.” I shot a look of triumph at Ma. Successful career woman, successful wife,  lousy cook. At least this was one area where I was better than her.

“Stop crouching around the house like a panther in the wilds Mita,” ordered Ma, while putting another word on the board. Playing Scrabble was her way of relaxing,  and Dad, recently retired from the Army, was pathetically grateful for her company during the weekends. I scowled and went back to the window.

The luggage was still being unloaded outside our apartment building. A large Fridge, probably GE, two LG air conditioners, double beds, a dressing table a piano and kitchen ware. I stood a little behind the curtain. I did not want to seem to be prying. 

A Honda City stopped by the van. A man stepped out of the car. With dark glasses covering his face, he appeared to be of an indeterminate age. An overgrown beard covered half his face. He was lithe, strong and muscular. I could imagine him jogging around the Lodi gardens, in shorts and tee shirt, his muscles rippling. I wondered if his wife would step out after him. No one did. “Bachelor,” I did not realize I had said the word aloud. “What?” asked Ma. “Don’t worry, Ma, it is not a seven lettered word.” I muttered. “Don’t be silly,” Ma shot me a warning look. The look spoke volumes. I saw warning in her eyes. I thrust out my chin. Ma was warning me to keep away from the new neighbor. She had not forgotten or forgiven me about Nishant. She had not forgotten the time she had walked into the house and found Nishant coming out of my bedroom. Out of a feeling of pique I had not told her that I had called Nishant simply to change the bulb in my bedroom. I was happy to let her think the worst and simmer in anger.

“Don’t worry di,” said Ravish, winking at me, “Our new neighbour will probably come to borrow a cup of sugar, or milk, sooner or later.”  Ravish was wrong, he did not come to see us under any pretext. I did meet him, two days later when we were coming up the lift. He stood in the corner, his head down, as if he was warding us off. I looked at him with curiosity, my eyes roaming across his face, or whatever little of it was visible, his shirt and his faded jeans. Ma seemed annoyed at me for my open display of curiosity. But there was little she could do about it. Just as the door opened he left without even a backward glance. His message to us was loud and clear. “Stay away.” “There was an air of mystery about him,” I muttered, secretly wishing that we stayed on the eighth floor and not the third so that we could have been together in the lift for longer. “Probably he is a small time crook,” Ma hazarded, making her dislike of him very evident. “Small time crooks do not live in our kinds of apartments,” I argued. Dad had never stopped boasting that our four bedroom luxury apartment had cost us one crore rupees. 

For days I kept a watch  on the neighboring apartment. But I never saw any visitors coming to see him. He was clearly a recluse. I had all the time in the world to do it. I was preparing for my CAT  exam.  Ma wanted me to do an MBA. “What else is there to do?” Ma’s eyes spoke volumes. “Not everyone is brilliant like you,” I said, thrusting out my chin, “some of us are average, people like me.” But Ma, a Senior Vice-President  in Hindustan Unilever, would never be able to understand how a girl could be satisfied with being just a homemaker. Luckily she was a realist and realized that the chances of my cracking the CAT were almost negligible. But it made a good conversational gambit.  Ma’s statement, “Mita is taking the CAT exam,” explained to her friends why I was lounging around the house for months instead of doing something useful with myself. 

 Although I did not meet my mysterious neighbor again, I got regular updates on him from our Bai. His Bai and ours  were friends which was not surprising. All the Bais who worked in the apartments were known to each other. “All he does is drink,” she disclosed, screwing up her nose in disgust, as though she could smell liquor around her, “He sits in the evening, eating chicken tikka and drinking. He stares at the walls all the time. He does nothing. At times he sketches furiously, at other times he writes furiously. He does not leave the house. He is like a prisoner. He remains locked up in the house.”

 “A graphic designer or an architect,” I surmised, “that would explain the sketching and the writing.” “Or a writer-cum- illustrator,” I added as an afterthought. “Perhaps he has been a prisoner,” Ma murmured, “Perhaps he is not used to freedom.” “True,” Dad’s voice was mild, he seldom disagreed with Ma, “What do you think he is?” “A small time crook?” Ma could not hide the contempt from her voice. 

“Perhaps he has a disease. Perhaps he is dying of cancer,” Ravish’s interruption surprised me. He took an apple, polished it with the edge of his tee shirt and crunched it loudly between his teeth. “Can’t be true,” interjected Ma, “he looks healthy, disgustingly so.”  Ravish gave Ma a telling look. He hadn’t finished as yet. “Or AIDS,” he concluded. Ma’s eyes began to glint. “That,” she said with relish, “is a distinct possibility.”

 Perhaps it was this conversation which stoked my curiosity further, so when I found the neighbour’s door slightly open I gave it a knock and walked in. He was sitting on a rocking chair, rocking himself slowly like an old man, his back to the wall. He was impervious to my presence. I walked in and stood before him, till he was forced to look at me. “I wanted to borrow…… some sugar,” I almost said, but stopped myself at the right time. I was carrying no sugar bowl. “The newspaper,” I substituted, “we get the Indian Express at home.” I had already espied The Times of India lying on the sofa. He handed me the newspaper, the gesture signified dismissal. It robbed me of an excuse to stay on in his house. 

 I went out and stared at his back. I realized that I would need to borrow the newspaper every day. It seemed a good excuse as any for seeing him. The next day I knocked at his door boldly after I had seen the bai leave. “I wanted to borrow the newspaper,” I requested, “I am preparing for the CAT exams.” He continued to look unseeingly at the wall, as if he could see a unique mosaic on it, invisible to other eyes. He did not even turn when I said, “thank you,” and closed the door behind me.

The third day there was a knock on our door around 11 a.m. and I saw with dismay his Bai standing with a copy of The Times of India. His message was loud and clear, “Do not intrude.” But I chose to be obtuse. After going through the Delhi Times quite avidly I trotted off to his apartment. I found the door ajar once again. I was sure he had not heard his Bai leave. I knocked perfunctorily and then walked in. He seemed surprised to see me. “I had sent you the newspaper,” he said. “I came to return it,” I retorted. “Just push it under the door, will you?” he asked sarcastically, “If it is not too much of a botheration.” This was the longest sentence he had spoken to me. I would have called it progress, had  he not robbed me of any excuse to see him. 

 For the next week or so I had no news of him. Then his bai Mamta took a week’s leave to go to her village. “How would he cope?” I wondered, although I did not have the courage to barge into his house once again. I knew the answer to it soon enough. Delivery boys from Domino’s Pizza, Subway and McDonald’s began frequenting our apartment block regularly. I had no doubt where all the food was going.

A fortnight later as I was passing by his door I found him rasping loudly. The door was ajar. The pizza delivery boy had just left and I was sure that our  neighbor  had no time to close the door. I stopped outside and listened. When he coughed once again I barged in. His face was completely flushed. His eyes seemed dilated. I put my hand on his forehead. It was burning with fever. “Where do you keep the thermometer?” I asked briskly. This time he did not argue. “In the bathroom,” he said weakly. “And paracetamol?” I asked. He gestured at the dining table. I took his temperature and was shocked to see that it was 104 F. I made him swallow two paracetamols and then asked him if I could ring his doctor. “Will you?” he asked humbly, “Dr. Shroff’s number is in my diary.” He propped himself on his elbow and took out his diary.  I could not see a telephone instrument anywhere but I saw his cell phone on the table. I picked it up and dialled the doctor’s number. The phone kept ringing but no one picked it up. “Probably a wrong number,” I surmised and dialled again. This time I got the doctor’s clinic. I handed over the phone to the neighbour and the doctor, obviously a friend of his, decided to drop by. I was with him when Dr. Shroff appeared and if he was surprised to see me he did not show it. “Chest infection,” he diagnosed, “Aloo, I am leaving you some antibiotics.” “Aloo?” I giggled to myself. The neighbor glared at me. Dr. Shroff chuckled and said sorry although he displayed no sorrow whatsoever. “Aloo,” I thought exultantly. I now knew his nickname. I had still to learn his name and surname. His house had no name plate on it. He seemed almost paranoid about keeping his identity a secret. I realized I would not able to learn my neighbor’s identity from Dr. Shroff. “If he can get some good home cooked food and medicines he shall be fine,” Dr. Shroff told me, possibly misreading our relationship.

I nodded my head. That evening I returned to the neighbor’s apartment with a bowl of homemade soup and some khichri and left it on his table. I would have loved to feed it to him, spoon by spoon, but I was a realist and did not push my luck. His illness gave me the opportunity to show off my culinary skills.  The next day I brought him  sagoodana khichri. He  opened the door and asked, “what have you brought for me?” “Sagoodana Khichri ,” I  said, entering his house. “Sagoodana,” he blew up, “I hate it.” Tears sprang up in my eyes. I began to rush out of the door. “Wait,” he said, getting hold of my hand and pulling me inside. “Serve me the khichri,” he ordered. “Eat it yourself,” the words were on my lips, thankfully I did not utter them. I spooned the khichri onto a plate and found him eating it with his fingers. “Delicious,” he murmured, “you are a whiz cook, kid.” Kid! Just how old was he? Thirty,  thirty-five or forty? I had no clue. But his words filled me with pride. “Since you are bent upon playing nursemaid,” he said, his smile taking the sting out of his words, “let me confess that I hate  brinjals, pumpkin and bitter gourd.”  I smiled. Those were my least favourite vegetables as well. We had something in common after all. “Tell me what you want to eat tomorrow,” I asked. “Can you make aloo ka paranthas?” he asked. “No,” I vetoed,  “You are ill. Aloo ka paranthas are out.” He made a face at me. The next day when I came I said conspiratorially, “I have got you aloo ka paranthas without oil.”  He grabbed the plate from my hand, tore a large piece of  the parantha  and stuffed it into his mouth. He munched it happily and after polishing off a parantha said, “You have magic in your fingers.”
 

The next afternoon when I arrived his house carrying pasta in tomato sauce  Dr. Shroff was already present there. “Mita, you are a miracle worker,” he said appreciatively, “your patient’s fever is down and he is  much better.” My heart sank at the thought that my neighbor would not need me anymore. I had come to look forward to his dependence on me. He surprised me by saying, “I still need home cooked food for some more days, at least till my Bai  returns.” “You must be an excellent cook if he relishes your cooking,” grinned the doctor, “your patient is a gourmand.” This revelation gave me the incentive to experiment with the meals I planned to bring him. For once I was glad Mom was the Vice President of an MNC and returned late from work. I had all the time to myself and no one questioned me about what  was cooking. On the fifth day I made him some Thai chicken curry and jasmine rice. “Are you a mind reader?” he asked wonderingly, “I love Thai food. It’s my favorite.” “It’s my favorite too,” I confessed. On the sixth day his Bai had returned and I realized that I no longer had any reason for seeing him.

 A few days later, when I was unable to restrain myself any longer,   I dropped in to see him. He was sitting on the rocking chair and rocking himself slowly. He looked at me without recognition. He seemed to have forgotten all about the past week. “How are you today?” I asked him, but he looked at me as if he was seeing me for the first time. I felt a pang of disappointment. We were back to where we had started. He had become a stranger once again. “What do you want?” he asked his voice brusque. “You know I am taking the CAT exams,” I said, “I was hoping that you could teach me.” It sounded like a pretty weak excuse, even to my own ears. “The only thing I can teach you is about death, I can teach you nothing else.” he said abruptly. There was no point in carrying on a conversation with him, I realized and left.

 A week later I heard his rasping cough and finding his apartment door open I walked in without knocking. He frowned when he saw me. “Why do you keep coming here Mita?” he asked. “I don’t know,” I admitted. I did not know myself what drew me to him repeatedly. Was it sheer curiosity? Was it an unknown attraction? Was I falling in love with him? “I do,” he challenged,  “I know why you come.” “Why?” My eyes widened. “Because,” he said... A minute later, I left his room crying. It was unfortunate that Ma came out of the lift just then and saw me rushing into our house.

“Where are you coming from, as though the devil himself was at your heels?” Ma asked me sharply. “Nowhere,” I muttered mutinously. But Ma had seen that our neighbor’s door was ajar. She figured that I had returned from there. She barged into his house without even a perfunctory knock at the door and said in a loud voice, “Let me warn you once and for all, just keep away from my daughter.” My face burnt with humiliation as I imagined him retorting, “It is your daughter who cannot keep away from me.” But he said nothing. He continued to look through her, as though she didn’t exist and Ma confessed that even she was intimidated by his cold stare.

Three days later he left his apartment. I did not know when he had left but I saw a van taking away his furniture. No one knew where he had disappeared. The next day the maid came with a sheaf of newspapers. “Saheb said you may find then useful,” she murmured. Ma looked at me meaningfully, while I muttered something about needing TOI for my CAT exams. “You could have subscribed to the newspaper yourself,” she admonished as she picked up the newspaper on the top of the pile and began reading it. 

The newspaper was opened onto  a page where our neighbor  had doodled a lot. He had drawn a long line against the margin of the story. Ma gave but a cursory glance to the main story of a woman who had drowned her two children in the bathtub. She had been considered mentally unstable and committed to an institution for life. After all, who was interested in a woman? 

 Ma’s eyes were focused on the next item, the story of a man who was suspected of brutally murdering his wife whom he had suspected of infidelity. He was given benefit of doubt, as there were no eye witnesses and the evidence against him was circumstantial. The man had left Kolkata, unable to withstand the hostility of his neighbors and acquaintances, and moved to Delhi. Ma was convinced that the man was our mysterious neighbor. “Alok Virmani,” she said ruminatively, “that is his name.” “Now you know who he is,” she said, “He must be this man. He must have left the city once again. I had warned you not to go to his apartment.”

I did not pay any attention to what she was saying. I remembered him saying, “I know what you want,” and his pinning me against the wall, looking at me with tortured eyes and saying, “You don’t know anything about me Mita, you do not know you are playing with fire.” I had closed my eyes, parted my lips and felt his lips cracked and salty, on mine, felt his beard graze my face, the bristles hurting me. I could feel him raise his head suddenly, as if to clear it, and his whispering, “Get out, get out of here, will you?” I felt my bruised lips with my fingers and was shaken, both by his touch and the emotions he invoked within me. I rushed from his house, as though the devil himself was at my heels. Now I realized what he meant when he had said, “You do not know anything about me.”  Alok. Aloo. It all fitted in.  We had not heard of the case, because we had been away for a family holiday to Singapore and  had missed the TV news and the newspaper reports. All I felt now was loathing for him, for what he had done and contempt for myself, for falling for a criminal like him. 

I would never have known the truth about him but for a sheer chance. One Sunday Ma was channel surfing during a two minute break while watching a serial, when she suddenly switched to a show, where they showed the woman I had read about in The Times of India, the Mumbai resident who had drowned her two children in the bathtub. She had been declared legally insane and committed to an institution. She sat on hospital bed, her eyes unseeing, staring at a large family photograph on the wall. The cameras zoomed on the photograph and there was no mistaking it. Sitting with her and her two sons was her husband. It was our mystery neighbor. “Mannan Aluwalia,” the announcer disclosed. 

Aloo. Aluwalia. Once again everything fell into place. His inability to live in his old house, his need to escape from the old friends and acquaintances and the old memories, his coming from Mumbai to Delhi and shifting to our Apartment Building almost incognito, his staring into space for long intervals, his abrupt sentences, his long silences, his glazed eyes, the bottles of whisky and his need to be loved. 

 For days afterwards I went to the Delhi Public Library and read  about the murder in the old newspapers.  I read about his wife, a schizophrenic who took her two boys for a bath and then drowned them in the bathtub. Mannan returned from work to find his wife  sitting beside  her two dead children asking him, “why don’t they laugh anymore Mannan, and why don’t they cry?” Suddenly he had lost everything he had held dear, his wife and his two sons. I recalled that there was so much sadness in his eyes and raw passion in his voice when  he had said, “Mita, you are playing with fire.” 

“You did the young man a grave injustice,” Dad told Ma, a mild reprimand in his voice. Ma bristled with anger initially and then admitted, “I was wrong about him and I would like to say sorry to him but no one knows how to contact him, no one knows where he has gone.”

I did not admit it before Ma that I knew how to contact him. That day when he had been down with raging fever,  on the pretext of ringing up  the doctor, I had first given a blank call to my own cell phone and then claimed that I had connected with a wrong number. I had got the doctor on the second ring. I now had Mannan’s number with me. I closed my eyes and thought about him. I still knew very little about him. He was years older than me. He had been the victim of a grave tragedy. He had built a wall around him which no one had been able to penetrate. I had tried my best to do it but had failed. He was possibly attracted towards me. Or maybe he was just lonely. He did not even like me very much and he had made that abundantly clear. But he needed someone to wipe away the pain of all that had happened, and give life another chance. It was a chance I was willing to take. He would no doubt rebuff me but I was willing to risk it.  He had warned me that I was playing with fire but I was prepared to have my fingers burnt. I went to my room, picked up my mobile and dialled.

 

Flash Fiction 2013 Shortlist, Vandana Jena

The Whirlpool

The river was in spate. Karan saw its swirling waters with bits of flotsam, scattered twigs and dried leaves gliding majestically on the surface. He held the little girl Choti’s hand tightly in his hand. She prattled on, unmindful of his brooding petulance, and long silences.  “Papa,” she chattered on, “Papa, I want a new doll.” For her it was a rare treat to walk with her father all by herself. She skipped a little, and jumped with fright when a stray buffalo lumbered up the path.

“Choti,” he said, carelessly messing up her silky hair.  He recalled the day when she was born. Her mother, weak after multiple pregnancies, had battled with death before Choti, premature, sickly and underweight had been born. He waited patiently as she scrambled up a boulder and plucked flowers from the bougainvillea tree. Today was her day. He would indulge her every wish.

 Choti  had now reached the rope  bridge  and was swaying  as she  stepped onto the bridge, while the thin rope bridge swung from side to side, due to the  wind velocity, while the  river waters swirled dangerously below.  “Come Papa,” she said, standing in the middle of the bridge, “hold me.” He followed her quickly, picked her up and held her up. She stood near the thin railing of the bridge, her eyes saucer like as she saw the swirling and raging torrent of the river in spate.

It took him one little shove to push her, and see her arms flaying like a little doll, slipping towards certain death. “Papa,” her terrified scream echoed and re-echoed in the wilderness where no one could hear her. He saw her slipping way, his fifth daughter, and another statistic in the number of unreported female infanticide. 

“Papa,” she shouted in terror, betrayal stamped on every part of her body.  “Papa,” her voice had turned feeble. He put his hands on his ears to blot out her screams. But he couldn’t. “Papa,” she screamed one last time. Her head began to disappear and he could only see her hand raised, as though in supplication to him.

“Turn way, don’t look,” he told himself but he could not help looking back as she was being swept away.  Suddenly, moved by a force he couldn’t understand, he tore off his shirt and jumped from the bridge into the river. With powerful strides he swam up to her and held her aloft like a trophy, unwilling to lose her for even a minute. He began to swim towards the bank and saw a man standing near the bank. Suddenly he felt himself being sucked into a whirlpool. He left Choti and saw her floating towards the bank, the man by the bank swimming immediately towards her, while he himself was pulled into the bowels of the river, terror at being sucked into the jaws of death making it impossible for him to scream for help.

Flash Fiction 2012 Longlist, Vandana Jena

Memory Games

Old age is debilitating. But I have done adapted to it gracefully.  Today I love my uncomplicated life in the retirement home, eating, sleeping, watching TV and walking. No visitors. People bore me.   And I can no longer remember their names. I am getting old, I’m almost sixty –five, and Sister tells me. I doze in my rocking chair and see the same dream I have told Sister about.  I see a log cabin on a hill top, with cobwebs covering the ebony door.  Once I clean the cobwebs everything would become clear once again.  

Sister wakes me up.  “Did you take your pills?” she asks. “I do not remember,” I confess. She scowls. “People often forget such things,” I argue what does she think I am suffering from? Alzheimer’s?
I have stopped trusting her, ever since she brought the man with brown eyes to me who took my hand and murmured, “Sunaina.” I shrugged his hand off immediately. Undeterred, he showed me photographs of himself and me, with a child in my arms. “Try and remember,” he urged. How could I? I did not know him. The pictures were morphed of course.  “Sister,” I hollered, “throw him out.’’  I then imposed the 'no visitor' rule. That was a long time ago.

“A new inmate has joined today,” says Sister. I am wary. Perhaps he is the fraud in disguise. I meet the new inmate in the garden reading a paper. “Hullo,” he says and gets up immediately.  I like chivalrous   men.  He has brown eyes, sparse hair and a frail appearance. Sister introduces us.  He mumbles his name but I can’t quite catch it. He is recovering from cancer he says. That explains his appearance. Chemotherapy. I realize.  He asks me about my family. “I live alone,” I mutter,   “And you?’’ “My wife is gone,’’ he responds. “Oh,” I murmur, “When did she pass away?”  “She went away,’’ he explains.   “Some people can’t cope with illness,’’ I murmur.  He mentions a son in the United States.  “He should take you with him.” I say. “I don’t want to go, in case my wife returns to me. The doctors say I have very little time left.” 

“There was a man once,” I whisper conspiratorially, “who kept showing me photographs of himself and me, insisting that we were married. I got him thrown out.”  He winces, and then takes out a photograph which he keeps looking at.  Curious, I crane my neck to see it.  It’s the photo of a log cabin on a hill top….. the same house I see   in my dreams. “I know the place,” I say excitedly, “I went there for my honeymoon.”   At last I remember something. If I could only brush the cobwebs away, I know, I would be able to see my husband’s face. “When?”  He asks hopefully. “It was a long time ago,’’ I mutter vaguely. “I know,” he murmurs, “forty five years ago.”  I frown. How does he know? I wonder.

Short Story 2012 First Prize, Vandana Jena

The Choice

The newspaper, dated September 4th, 2004,   lies opened on the dining table. My eyes are riveted on the news item,  “When a  mother was made to choose between her two children.” I read the news slowly.  

Beslan, Russia, September 3:

Zalina Dzandarova cradles her son Alan as he sleeps with his small face buried against her stomach. He is the child that Dzandarova was able to save, the child she chose to save, really. It is the other one, little Alana, her 6-year-old daughter, whose image torments her: Alana clutching her hand, Alana crying and calling after her. Alana’s sobs disappearing into the distance as Dzandarova walked out of Middle School No. 1 here on Thursday, clutching Alan in her arms. Guerrillas armed with automatic rifles and explosive belts allowed 26 women and children to leave. About a dozen mothers, like Dzandarova, were allowed to take only one child and forced to leave another behind."
 
 Ma is sitting on the chair by my side, her eyes on me. As I finish reading the newspaper aside, she reaches for it.  Ma reads the newspaper, oblivious to the world, oblivious to the fact that her tea is growing cold, and that a fly has begun to hover dangerously close to her half-eaten egg.
 
“Terrible, isn’t it,” clucks Aunt Saras in sympathy, “It is a choice no woman should have to make.” A gentle shudder passes through Ma’s slender fame. “No,” she says,” in a voice so low that I can barely catch the words. “She chose the boy, didn’t she?” asks Rati, and her mother looks at her indignantly. “She chose the younger child,” Aunt Saras rebukes her, “He just happened to be a boy, she had no choice really.”
 
“We are all,” says Rati,  'in the grip of terrorism. 9/11 has changed the entire world.  It has made the word `trust ‘disappear from our lexicon. It has made us realise how vulnerable we all are,” says Aunt Saras.
 
 But Ma and I barely hear their words. Her eyes lock into mine and then I look away. I cannot bear to see them so tortured and pained. Both she and I know what she is thinking.  Not everyone's world crumbled on 9/11. There is always a raging menace closer home, that peeps its ugly head often and robs people of their innocence.   I am thinking of that terrible afternoon some eight years ago which changed our lives irrevocably.
 
It was a sleepy summer afternoon in Manipur, a troubled, insurgency prone hilly state in North Eastern India. The air was redolent with the smell of sweet smelling flowers, the humming of honey bees,  and the occasional growl of a dog. Both Mani, my younger brother and I were asleep, when Ma woke us up. “Get up,” she said,” we have to attend a function.” Mani started crying. Ma immediately picked him in her lap although he was now more than two years old. “Come Charu get up,” she said, shaking me by the shoulder,” get dressed.” That is why we were dressed at 3.30 pm that Saturday afternoon, to be present at the parade ground in the district headquarters at Thoubal by four in the afternoon.
 
Papa was away on training, but Ma insisted that Papa would have wanted us to represent him at the official function. The parade ground was packed. The entire town seemed to have congregated there, although I now know that it could accommodate only a thousand persons at best.  Ma held Mani in her arms and clutched my hand. She was ushered in and taken to the second row, just behind the VIP seats.  Ma smiled with pleasure for Papa was only a middle rung officer in the Central Reserve Police Force. Mani put his thumb into his mouth and Ma tried in vain to pull it out. His lower lip began to protrude. The Chief Guest arrived just then and we stood up as the flag was unfurled.
 
 When the crackling sound was first heard no one quite understood what it was. Fire crackers? They were supposed to be lit at the end of the function, as a part of the grand finale. Why was the crackle, the sizzle and the smoke coming now, when the programme had just begun?  The next time the crackling sounds erupted  we  realized what they were.  This was gunfire. Suddenly,  yellowish brown men in Khaki uniforms, with masks over their faces and with narrow slits for their eyes swooped like eagles before us. With guns in their hands and hatred in their eyes, they were men who wanted to wreak revenge upon the CRPF, for swooping down upon them in their hideout and killing their comrades a few days before. It was an insurgent group which had opened fire.
 
I saw Ma’s face, with her mouth wide open. The babble of voices was replaced by total silence.  Everyone was petrified. Then I heard Mani raise his voice and bawl.  His voice, never feeble, had now reached a crescendo. Ma tried to put a hand on his mouth but he dug his teeth into her soft flesh until she yelped with pain. An armed insurgent came and plucked him from her hands and slapped him on the cheek. Mani howled even louder. All heads turned towards Ma. Ma’s face turned ashen as the insurgent plucked him from her hands. Mani continued to bawl. 

“Tell him to shut up,” hissed the insurgent, his eyes blazing. Mani began to cry even more loudly. “Get out, get out, leave immediately,” shouted their Commander who was standing on the dais, his gun trained at the Chief Guest.  Ma looked uncertainly in my direction. “Leave right now,” he bellowed,” or I will kill you and that brat.” The armed insurgent next to her prodded her with his gun, again and again. “Leave,” he growled,” take that brat and leave immediately.”

“Ma,” I called out, my voice hoarse with fear. “Ma,” I cried once again, trying to clutch her saree. Ma shivered, looked at the guard scowling at her, and then at the commander on the dais and saw them shake their heads imperceptibly. Then she put her hand on Mani’s mouth, silencing his screams, and pulling the saree from my hand, she walked away.

As she left the Commander at the dais shouted a loud command, “Everyone on their knees…lie flat with your heads down. Don’t move.”  I saw everyone drop down on their knees and lie straight on the ground, their nose touching the gravel.  But I was shell shocked. Feeling completely bewildered, I remained standing. Then the man next to me pushed me down.  At the gate when Ma turned back she saw him bending over me, his body covering mine.  For a moment she froze, her mouth open. Then slowly she dragged herself from the parade ground where she knew mayhem would follow. 
 
I have no idea what happened in the intervening hour. I could smell the sweat on the man’s body, mingled with a strange musky smell. I felt his breath fan my face and I was reminded of the smell of disinfectants in the hospital. It was sekmai, I learnt later, the famous beer made from fermented rice. I looked into his eyes, unsmiling, small, brown and almost expressionless. I could see the tiny red veins thread the whites of his eyes. His proximity did not disturb me. I did not understand its implication, or the implicit danger. I was but eight years old. I was not crushed by his weight; he rested most of it on his elbows. Then we heard some more shots. I saw the terror I felt within me, mirrored in his eyes. Almost savagely, he raised his hand and turned me around on my stomach. I felt the gravel rub against my nose, my cheeks and my chin. I closed my eyes.
 
 Gunfire crackled once again. Bullets were sprayed all around. They fell here, there, everywhere.  There was something familiar about the man whose body hovered over mine.  I frowned, trying to remember if I had seen him before. Gunfire crackled once more. I wanted to cover my ears with my hands, for the noise seemed deafening.

However, the commander had said, “Don’t move.” No one moved. Suddenly the man fell on top of me. I was almost crushed under his weight.  But I still did not move, not until I heard the siren, the sounds of scuffle and the shouts, and finally the announcement in English and Manipuri saying that it was over.  I crawled from under his body, rolled his body away from mine, saw his glazed eyes, the gaping hole in his back and his blood-splattered shirt and knew that he was dead.
 
 For a long time, I stood there looking at the bodies of officers being taken away by the jawans, at the bodies scattered in the field, at the children bawling and the women crying. I crossed the Parade ground, which was just a fifteen minutes walk from my house. The road was familiar to me as the parade ground was on way to my school. I reached home grimy, with scratched knees, and grazed elbows.
 
Mummy was standing by the door, staring glassily at the gate, with Mani in her arms. I saw the look of terror in her eyes when she saw me return with grazed knees and elbows and blood splattered all over my frock. ” Are you alright, Charu?” she asked, “Did anything happen to you?”   She looked at the blobs of blood all over my frock once again, and asked in a strange voice,” Charu are you hurt?” I thought of the ground I had just left. Littered on the ground were men who were dead, women who were dying and children who were bleeding.

Lying on the ground was the man, whose mouth reeked of sekmai, who was now quite dead. Was I hurt? Indeed I was but mine was not a physical hurt. I didn’t say anything. “Charu are you hurt?” she began saying once again but then she saw my set mouth and my glazed eyes and kept quiet. The maid came and took me to the bathroom, helped me change my frock, cleaned my grazed knees and elbows with antiseptic and later on put me to sleep. I thought once again of the man who had rolled on top of me, dead, quite dead, and realized that, but for him, it would have been me.
 
No newspaper covered our story. There were more than eight hundred people who had gathered in the grounds and twenty eight among them were dead.  Eight of them were officers. One of them was the Chief Guest. It was the dead and the dying who made news. No newspaper was interested to know about a mother and son who got away and the daughter who got left behind.
 
I have no idea what Ma told Papa on his return. But if he found me quiet and withdrawn afterwards he understood. “She has seen death at close quarters,” he said,   “no one can remain untouched by it. No wonder she has become withdrawn.” He knew that this explained my silence, my occasional bouts of bad temper, and my recurrent nightmares.
 
“Charu?” Many a times I heard the pleading note in Ma’s voice but she could never ask me what happened that day. At that time, I had never understood the reason for her anxiety.  All I could remember, whenever I looked at her, was her walking away with Mani and brushing away the hand of the daughter she was leaving behind. It was later, as an adolescent, that I understood the reason for her worry, but I did nothing to alleviate it.
 
For eight long years she had suffered. For eight long years I had never forgiven her. But now reading the newspaper I realize that she had no choice really. She had done what any other woman, in her place would have done.
 
I see Ma’s eyes resting on me and I see in them the question she had asked that summer eight years ago. ”I’m alright Ma,” I say, “I wasn’t hurt.” Ma understands immediately. I see tension being slowly released from her face. She still has an unspoken question in her eyes. I know what it is. I will tell her later about my blood-splattered dress.  I will tell her of the unknown man, who had saved my life by shielding my body with his, of the bullet which had torn into his back, of his blood which had splattered on my clothes.

Why did he save my life? I will never know. Was he someone we knew?  I cannot remember. Did he have a daughter at home? Did I remind him of her? I will never know.  One day I find out about the people who died that day and find out who he was. One day I shall meet his family and tell them that he was really a hero.  I look at the newspaper lying on the dining table and then at Ma who had left her daughter behind at the parade grounds. This daughter has come home at last.