My Name Is Radha Read online

  The bazaar next to their house lay deserted. Dr Ghulam Mustafa’s dispensary had been shut some time ago, and from the balcony Sughra had seen padlocks hanging from Dr Gorand’s farther down. Mian Sahib’s condition was critical. Sughra was feeling terribly anxious, unable to think straight. She took Basharat aside and begged him, ‘For God’s sake, do something. I know it isn’t safe to step outside, but please go and fetch someone. Abbaji is very ill.’

  Basharat did go, but returned immediately with a terribly pale face. He had seen a blood-drenched corpse in the chowk and a bunch of masked men busy pillaging a nearby shop. She hugged her terrified brother and tried to be patient, but she couldn’t bear the sight of her father. Mian Sahib’s right side had become totally paralysed, as if it had no life left in it. His speech had also become slurred. He talked mostly through gestures and seemed to be telling her not to worry, everything would be all right by the grace of God.

  Nothing became all right. Ramzan Eid was two days away. Mian Sahib was sure that the current crisis would end before Eid, but now the atmosphere was thick with the premonition that the day of Eid might prove to be doomsday. From the top of the house only clouds of smoke could be seen rising from practically every part of the city. The horrifying sound of exploding bombs kept Sughra and Basharat on edge all night. Sughra had to stay awake to look after her father; the bombs seemed to be exploding inside her head. Panic-stricken, she looked now at her paralysed father, now at her terrified brother. The male servant Akbar, being an old man of seventy, wasn’t really much help. He just lay in his dingy little room coughing and spitting big globs of phlegm day and night. Finally, one day, Sughra had had enough with him and gave him a piece of her mind. ‘What are you good for, anyway? Don’t you see Mian Sahib’s condition? You are, to say the least, a thankless lout. Now, when you’re most needed to serve him, you laze about, faking asthma. Oh, those servants who eagerly laid down their lives to serve their masters are long gone!’

  After she had vented her anger, Sughra left the old servant, only to begin to regret letting herself go when the poor man had done nothing wrong. She laid out his food on a tray and carried it to his room but found it empty. Basharat went through the entire house looking for him but the servant was nowhere to be found. The latch on his door was unfastened on the outside, which gave the impression that he had perhaps gone out to do something for Mian Sahib. Sughra prayed ardently for his success. Two days passed but Akbar didn’t return.

  It was evening. The siblings had seen many such evenings in the past, enlivened by the boisterous commotion of the coming Eid, when their eyes stayed glued to the sky expecting to sight the new moon.

  Eid was to be the following day, only the new moon needed to announce its arrival. How impatient they used to be for the announcement. And how annoyed when a stubborn piece of cloud wandered across the night sky and refused to budge from where the sighting of the moon was likely. Now it was clouds of smoke everywhere. Both climbed to the upper floor. Here and there on faraway roofs they saw human figures, but only as shadowy blotches. They couldn’t tell whether these figures were looking for the moon or watching the leaping flames.

  The moon turned out to be one brazen body. It managed to peek through the cloud cover. Sughra quickly raised her hands and offered a prayer to God to restore her father’s health, while Basharat twisted inside with displeasure over the riots that had ruined the delights of Eid.

  The sun hadn’t yet gone down fully, in other words, the evening darkness hadn’t quite set in. Mian Sahib’s cot, on which he lay immobile, was set out on the floor sprinkled with water. His eyes were fixed on the distant sky, thinking something difficult to guess. After sighting the moon Sughra came and said salaam to him. He acknowledged it with a movement of his hand. As she bowed her head, he patted it with his good hand with tender affection. Tears dripped from her eyes, and Mian Sahib was so overcome with emotion that his own eyes also became moist. He laboured with his paralysed tongue to console her. ‘The blessed and gracious God will put everything right.’

  Just then they were surprised by a sudden knock at the door. Sughra was struck with terror. She glanced at Basharat. His face blanched.

  The knock came again. ‘Go and see who it is,’ Mian Sahib told Sughra.

  Sughra thought that the old man Akbar had returned. A flicker ran through her eyes. She grabbed Basharat’s arm and said, ‘Go and see. Perhaps it’s Akbar.’

  Mian Sahib shook his head, as if he meant to say, ‘No, it’s not Akbar.’

  ‘Who else could it be, Abbaji?’

  As Mian Abdul Hayy was struggling to say something, Basharat returned, looking terribly frightened and breathless. He moved Sughra away from Mian Sahib’s cot and said in undertones, ‘It’s some Sikh.’

  ‘A Sikh!’ Sughra screamed. ‘What does he want?’

  ‘He’s asking me to open the door.’

  Trembling, Sughra pulled Basharat to her bosom and plunked down on Mian Sahib’s cot, looking at her father with listless eyes.

  A strange smile swept over Mian Abdul Hayy’s thin, lifeless lips. ‘Go open the door. It’s Gurmukh Singh.’

  Basharat shook his head. ‘No, it’s someone else.’

  ‘It’s him,’ Mian Sahib slurred decisively. ‘Sughra, go and open the door.’

  Sughra stood up. She knew Gurmukh Singh. Before retiring, her father had done something for him, but her memory about the favour was hazy. Perhaps he had saved Gurmukh Singh from some fraudulent case that was brought against him. Since then he had always brought them a gift bag of rumaali sevaiyan on Chhoti Eid. Her father told the man several times, ‘Sardarji, there really is no need to inconvenience yourself.’ But the latter would respectfully join his hands and say, ‘Mian Sahib, by the grace of Wahe Guruji you have everything. It’s just a small gift that I bring on the occasion of Eid to express my gratitude. Even a hundred generations of mine could never pay you back for the immense favour you did for me. May God keep you happy!’

  Sardar Gurmukh Singh had been bringing this gift on the eve of Eid from as far back as Sughra could remember. She wondered why she hadn’t thought of him when the knock sounded. And why did Basharat say, ‘No, it’s someone else,’ when he, too, had seen Gurmukh Singh many times? Who else could it be? Thinking along these lines, she approached the deorhi. Should she open the door or just ask from inside. She hadn’t made up her mind quite yet when there was a louder, more insistent knock. Her heart began to pound loudly. With great difficulty she asked, ‘Who is it?’

  Basharat was standing close by. He pointed at a chink in the door and asked her to peek through it.

  She peeked. It was not Gurmukh Singh; he was quite old. The man who stood outside on the stoop looked young. Her eyes were still glued to the chink when the man knocked again. She saw he had a paper bag in his hands, just like the one Gurmukh Singh used to bring.

  She took her eyes off the chink and asked in a loud voice, ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I . . . I’m Gurmukh Singh’s son Santokh.’

  Much of her fear had subsided by then. ‘What brings you here today?’ she asked politely.

  ‘Where is Judge Sahib?’ he asked.

  ‘He is ill.’

  ‘Oh,’ Sardar Santokh said regretfully. ‘These,’ he shook the paper bag, ‘these are sevaiyan. Sardarji is no longer with us. He passed away.’

  ‘Passed away?’ Sughra quickly asked.

  ‘Yes, about a month ago. As he was dying, he told me, “Son, I’ve been bringing sevaiyan to Judge Sahib every Chhoti Eid for the past ten years. You should do the same when I’m gone.” I promised him. I’m making good on my promise. Here, please accept this.’

  Sughra was so touched her eyes welled up with tears. She opened the door a crack and took the proffered bag. ‘May God give Sardarji a place in Heaven,’ she said.

  After a pause Gurmukh Singh’s son asked, ‘Judge Sahib is ill?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What is wrong?’

  ‘He had a
stroke.’

  ‘Oh! Had Sardarji been alive, he’d have felt very sad. He remembered Judge Sahib’s kindness to his dying day. He used to say, “He is not a human but a god.” May God give him long life. Please give him my salaams.’

  Before Sughra could decide whether to ask him to arrange for a doctor to visit Judge Sahib, Santokh Singh had gone. He had walked a few steps when four masked men approached him. Two of them held burning torches and the other two a can of kerosene and other flammable materials. One of them asked, ‘So, Sardarji, you’re done with your job?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well then, shall we take care of the Judge Sahib now?’ the man asked, laughing behind his mask.

  ‘Yes . . . as you like,’ Sardar Gurmukh Singh’s son said and walked away.

  For Freedom’s Sake

  I don’t remember the year but it must have been when Amritsar was reverberating everywhere with the cries of ‘Inqilab Zindabad!’ These cries, I recall, were filled with a strange excitement, a gushing energy one saw only among the blossoming milkmaids of the city as they tore through its bazaars with baskets of uplas carefully balanced on their heads. It was a wild and woolly time. The dread, tinged with sadness, which had hung in the atmosphere since the bloody incident at Jallianwala Bagh, had completely disappeared and a dauntless fervour had taken its place: the desire to fling oneself headlong, regardless of where one might land.

  People chanted slogans, staged demonstrations and were sent to prison by the hundreds. Courting arrest had become a favourite pastime: You were apprehended in the morning and released by the evening. You were tried in court and thrown in jail for a few months. You came out, shouted another slogan, and got arrested all over again.

  Those days were so full of life! The tiniest bubble when it burst became a formidable vortex. Somebody would stand in the square, make a speech calling for a strike, and a strike would follow. A tidal wave would sweep through requiring everybody to wear only homespun khadi to put the textile factories of Lancashire out of business, and all imported cloth would be boycotted. Bonfires would go up in every chowk, and in the heat of the moment people would peel off their clothes then and there and throw them into the flames. Now and then, when a woman tossed one of her ill-chosen saris down from her balcony, people would go wild with applause.

  I remember one conflagration across from the main police station by the Town Hall. My classmate Shaikhu became so excited that he took off his silk jacket and tossed it on to the pyre of imported clothing, setting off a round of thunderous applause because he was the son of a noted toady. The applause excited him even more. He peeled off his silk shirt and offered it to the flames too, realizing only later that the shirt had gold buttons and links.

  Far be it from me to make fun of Shaikhu. The fact is that I felt just as passionate in those days. I’d dream of getting hold of handguns and forming a terrorist group of my own. That my father was receiving his pension from the government never crossed my mind. Something inside me was boiling to spill out, akin to the heady feeling of a game of flush.

  I had never cared much for school anyway, but in those days I came to positively detest it. I’d leave the house with my books and make straight for Jallianwala Bagh. Here I’d watch whatever was happening until school ended. Or I would sit under a tree and stare at the women in the windows of houses some distance away, hoping that one of them would fall in love with me. Why such a thought entered my head I have no idea.

  Jallianwala Bagh was the scene of much activity at the time. Canvas tents and enclosures were set up everywhere. People would choose somebody as ‘dictator’ every few days and install him with due ceremony in the biggest tent. He would receive a military salute from his ragtag army of volunteers. In mock seriousness, he would receive the greetings of khadi-clad men and women for three or four days, at most a fortnight. He would collect donations of flour and rice for the soup kitchen from the banias, and one day while drinking his lassi (God only knows why it was so readily available in the Jallianwala Bagh area) he would be grabbed by the police, arrested, and whisked away to prison.

  I had an old classmate, Shahzada Ghulam Ali. You can get some idea of how close our friendship was from the fact that we flunked our high school exams together twice. We had even run away to Bombay once. Our plan was to reach the Soviet Union eventually, but when our money ran out and we were forced to sleep on the streets, we had to write home, asking to be forgiven, and returned.

  Shahzada Ghulam Ali was a handsome young man: tall and fair as Kashmiris generally are, with a sharp nose and playful eyes. There was something particularly regal in the way he walked, as well as a trace of the swagger of professional goondas.

  He had not been a ‘Shahzada’ during our schooldays. But as revolutionary fervour picked up and he participated in a dozen or so rallies, the slogans, garlands of marigold, songs of patriotic zeal and the opportunity to talk freely with female volunteers turned him into a sort of half-baked revolutionary. One day he delivered his first speech. The next day I found out from the newspaper that Ghulam Ali had become a ‘Shahzada’.

  Soon he became known all over Amritsar, which is a fairly small city where it doesn’t take long to become famous or infamous. Its residents—quite critical of ordinary people, and determined to find fault with them—couldn’t be more forgiving to a religious or political leader. They always seem to be in need of a sermon or speech. One can survive here as a leader for a long time. Just show up in different clothes each time: now black, now blue.

  But that was a different time. All the major leaders were already in prison and their place was free for the taking. The people of course had no need for leaders, at least not much, but the revolutionary movement certainly did. It urgently needed people who would wear khadi, sit inside the biggest tent in Jallianwala Bagh, make a speech, and get arrested.

  In those days Europe was going through its first ‘dictatorships’. Hitler and Mussolini had gained quite a bit of notoriety. Perhaps that’s what led the Congress party to create its own ‘dictators’. When Shahzada Ghulam Ali’s turn came, forty ‘dictators’ had already been arrested.

  I headed off to Jallianwala the minute I heard that the strange mix of circumstances had made our Ghulam Ali a ‘dictator’. Volunteers stood guard outside the large tent. Ghulam Ali saw me and called me in. A mattress was laid out on the ground with a khadi bedcover on it, and there, leaning against cushions and bolsters, sat Ghulam Ali talking to a group of khadi-clad banias about, I believe, vegetables. He finished the session quickly, gave instructions to his volunteers and turned towards me. He looked far too serious, which prompted me to tease him. As soon as the volunteers had cleared away, I laughed and said, ‘Hey, Prince, what’s up?’

  I made fun of him for quite a while. Yet, there was no denying the change in him; it was palpable, and what’s more, he was aware of it. He kept telling me, ‘Saadat, please don’t make light of me. I know I’m a small man and don’t deserve this honour. But from now on I want to keep it this way.’

  I returned to Jallianwala Bagh in the evening. It was packed with people. As I had come early I found a place close to the platform. Ghulam Ali appeared amidst tremendous applause. He looked dashing in his immaculate white khadi outfit, the slight swagger mentioned earlier adding to his attraction. He spoke for nearly an hour. Goose pimples broke out on my body several times during his speech. I even felt the overwhelming need to explode like a bomb then and there a few times. Perhaps I was thinking that such an explosion might free India.

  God knows how many years have passed since then. Our emotions and events were in a state of flux. It is difficult to describe their precise modulations now. But as I write this story and recall him making that speech, all I see is youth itself talking, youth that was innocent of politics and filled with the sincere boldness of a young man who suddenly stops a woman on the street and tells her outright, ‘Look, I love you,’ then surrenders himself to the law.

  I’ve heard many more speech
es since. But in none of them have I heard even a faint echo of the bubbling madness, reckless youth, raw emotion and naked challenge that filled Shahzada Ghulam Ali’s voice that day. Speeches today are laced with laboured seriousness, stale politics and prudence dressed in lyricism.

  At the time neither side, the government or the people, was experienced. They were at each other’s throats, unaware of the consequences. The government sent people to prison without understanding the implications of such a step, and those who submitted to voluntary arrest showed equal ignorance of the true significance of their act.

  It was wrong-headedness, and potentially explosive. It ignited people, subsided, and ignited them all over again, creating a surge of fiery exuberance in the otherwise dull and gloomy atmosphere of servitude.

  All of Jallianwala Bagh exploded with loud applause and inflammatory slogans when Shahzada Ghulam Ali ended his speech. His face was gleaming. When I met him alone and shook his hand to congratulate him, I could feel that it was trembling. A similar warm throbbing was evident on his bright face. He was gasping a bit. His eyes were aglow with the heat of passion, but they also hid traces of a search that had nearly exhausted itself. They were desperately looking for somebody. Suddenly he snatched away his hand and darted towards the jasmine bushes.

  A young woman stood there, wearing a spotless khadi sari. The next day I came to know that Shahzada Ghulam Ali was in love with her. It was not a one-sided love because she, Nigar, loved him madly in return. Nigar, as is obvious from her name, was a Muslim girl; an orphan. She worked as a nurse in a women’s hospital. She was perhaps the first Muslim girl in Amritsar to come out of purdah and join the Congress movement.

  Partly her khadi outfit, partly her participation in the activities of the Congress, and partly also the atmosphere of the hospital—had all slightly mellowed her Islamic demeanour, the harshness which is part of a Muslim woman’s nature, and softened her.